Screen of Deceit

by Nick Oldham

‘Mark!’ Jack aimed the gun. Mark could see the ‘O’ of the muzzle pointed directly at his chest. He would now have bet his life that this was the gun he’d delivered for Jonny. Part of a chain of events that led to Jack now holding it.

  ‘Shoot me then, then you’ll have killed your brother and your sister. Good going.’

  Jack’s aim did not waver. His finger curled on the trigger. Sweat dripped off his forehead, through his eyebrows and on to his eyelids, making him blink. The effort of holding up the weapon was taking its toll. It began to shake.

  ‘Shit,’ he gasped, and lowered his gun.

  The brothers stared at each other for a timeless moment, then Mark spun out of the room, taking the stairs two at a time, switching the house lights on as he went, and unlocked the front door.

  As he opened it, the first police car screamed into the street, blue lights flashing … many more followed.

  Twenty-Two

  They were in a sealed and secured visiting room, Mark on one side of a screen, Jack on the other. A thick Perspex window separated them.

  Mark looked at his brother through the scratched pane.

  Jack had been pretty close to death and the surgeons at Blackpool Victoria Hospital had battled to save his life because the bullet that had skewered down through his shoulder into his chest had nicked a major artery. He was patched up now and, six days later, though weak, was well enough to be in custody at the Blackpool cop shop.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d come,’ Jack said. He shifted on his plastic seat, gritting his teeth with pain.

  ‘Nor did I,’ Mark responded flatly. ‘What’s happening with you?’ He felt distant and unresponsive to anything, recent events continually washing over him like a tidal wave.

  ‘I’ve been charged with some offences,’ he said vaguely. ‘I’ll be up at court in the morning and then the cops want to talk to me here for another couple of days. After that I’ll probably be remanded in custody until my case comes up.’

  ‘When’s that?’

  ‘Who knows?’

  ‘Guilty or not guilty?’

  Jack didn’t answer, just stared at Mark.

  ‘So,’ Mark said, taking a breath, ‘you are the Crackman.’

  Jack gave a barely perceptible nod.

  Mark shook his head in disgust. ‘How long?’

  Jack gave a short laugh. ‘Started when I was your age … it was the only way to survive, specially after Dad left … it just got bigger and I got further and further away from the streets.’

  ‘And I thought you were a legit businessman,’ Mark snorted. ‘What a fool I was.’

  ‘I was – am – a businessman,’ Jack said defensively.

  ‘Don’t kid yourself, you’re nothing of the sort. You’re a death dealer,’ Mark said, keeping a tenuous grip on his anger. ‘And you killed Beth, didn’t you?’

  ‘No – don’t try to lay that one on me. I’m not having that.’

  ‘But Jonny was one of your dealers and he gave out the drugs you supplied, some to Bethany and she died. Do not try to wriggle out of that.’ Mark jabbed a finger at Jack’s face. He would have liked to punch him hard and repeatedly. He was glad there was a screen between them.

  His brother remained silent.

  ‘I have nothing more to say to you,’ Mark said, rising from the seat and turning out of the visiting room without looking back.

  ‘My head’s a shed,’ Mark complained, using the quaint northern term to describe emotional turmoil.

  On the table in front of him was a toasted bacon sandwich – filled with really crispy bacon – and a mug of sweet tea courtesy of DCI Christie. The two of them, Mark and Christie, were seated in the canteen on the top floor of Blackpool Police Station.

  The food looked and smelled appetising, but whilst Mark may have been famished, he didn’t feel like eating.

  ‘You did good,’ Christie said. ‘You were brave, a bit cunning, and you did the right thing.’

  ‘Why the hell does it feel so bad, though?’

  ‘Because it was a tough call.’

  ‘My head’s still a shed,’ Mark admitted.

  ‘I’d be surprised – nay, astounded – if it wasn’t.’ Christie, hunched over the table looking at Mark, had his back to the dining room door. He turned to glance over his shoulder when a noisy group of people barged in and formed a ragged queue at the counter.

  Mark’s lower jaw dropped and his mouth popped open in astonishment. ‘They’re the lads who …’ he spluttered.

  ‘Yeah, they are,’ Christie confirmed with a smirk. ‘Christie’s little helpers.’

  Mark had immediately recognized the four youths who had entered the room, all about his age, all wearing the same sort of ID badges around their necks that he’d had to put on and sign for before being allowed into the inner sanctum of the cop shop. They were the four lads, the ‘thieves’ who’d hurtled past him whilst he’d been in one of the arcades, chased by the police; the ones who’d dropped their ill-gotten gains in a plastic bag at Mark’s feet – the Xbox games, CDs and DVDs – and then legged it, hotly pursued by the two uniformed cops on their tails.

  ‘They work for me occasionally,’ Christie said to the gobsmacked Mark Carter, who couldn’t keep his eyes off them.

  ‘I knew it was all part of the set-up,’ Mark said, ‘but it was all so real.’

  ‘It had to be,’ Christie said, indicating the lads with a gesture of his thumb. He went on, ‘They’re all in some sort of care, but they’re straight, dead-ahead, honest kids and perform a valuable function. Sometimes we need the help of youngsters like that’ – he paused for effect – ‘like yourself. Anyway, like I said when you eventually agreed to help, everything you did from that moment on, everything that happened to you and around you, had to be totally realistic, including your response as much as possible – which is why your arrest for stealing the bike worked so well. It was something you weren’t expecting and you reacted just right and in a way that drew Jonny Sparks in.’ Mark couldn’t help but beam a little at that. ‘We just had to ensure you were in the right place at the right time … and what could be more realistic in Blackpool than four little scallies legging it from the police, or someone on Shoreside being locked up for nicking a bike? Happens all the time.’

  Mark smiled proudly. ‘But what about the stuff in the bag, the games and all that?’

  ‘Provided by a big retail chain which often helps us out when we need it … and which, incidentally, we need back at some stage.’

  Mark reddened slightly. ‘I’d forgotten about them.’

  The lads at the counter got cakes, biscuits and fizzy drinks then headed for a table in the far corner. One nodded amiably at Mark as he passed and Mark grinned back like a Cheshire cat.

  ‘Thing is, the two officers chasing the lads didn’t know it was a set-up. They had to believe the lads were thieves and had to behave exactly like cops do, just in case you were being observed – which you were, actually.’

  ‘Oh? By who?’

  ‘Recall the oldish couple having a brew in the arcade caff?’

  ‘My grandparents!’ Mark exclaimed, recalling them clearly and how he had pretended to the cops that he was their grandson.

  ‘Two neighbourhood watch coordinators who do a bit of town-centre watching for us. Both retired cops.’

  ‘Bloody hell! You’ve got people everywhere.’

  ‘Better believe it,’ Christie said. ‘Anyway, even when you were arrested for stealing your own bike, the two officers didn’t know that was a set-up either. They were acting on information supplied by me. They whole thing had to be as real as possible, otherwise Jonny would’ve seen right through it. What could’ve been worse than you getting a nod and a wink from a cop who was in on it? Would’ve given the whole game away. Even now I haven’t told the officers the whole truth … which I must do,’ he finished thoughtfully.

  Mark’s appetite suddenly returned. He picked up the big sandwich and chomped into it, melted butter drooling down
his chin. ‘How often do they do stuff for you?’ he asked about the lads.

  ‘Quite often … if nothing else they do test purchases, y’know going into off-licences to see if the storekeeper will sell them booze, fags, that sort of thing. Sometimes they get involved in other, more complicated stuff. Why?’ Christie eyeballed him. ‘Interested?’

  ‘Could be,’ Mark said through a mouthful of bacon and toast. He swallowed. ‘Jack’s not coming out for a while, is he? Sorry to change the subject, like.’

  ‘No.’ The detective shook his head with a pout. ‘The more we dig, the more we unearth. He’s a very big operator, worth millions – money which is currently being chased by our financial investigators.’

  ‘Hell.’

  ‘Hell, indeed,’ Christie agreed. ‘But it wasn’t a turf war he was involved in, by the way.’

  Mark stopped chewing, frowned, washed down his mouthful of food with the tea. ‘What was it, then? Why were people after him with guns?’

  ‘Remember me mentioning Jane Grice?’

  Mark nodded immediately. ‘She died of a drug overdose. She went to our school. It got mentioned at assembly.’

  ‘That’s the one. She was actually the daughter of a very iffy businessman from Poulton who’s an even bigger villain than Jack, a real gangster.’ Mark winced slightly at the words, still finding it hard to imagine Jack as a criminal, let alone a gangster. Christie said, ‘He was after Jack in revenge for Jane’s death. At least that’s what I believe, but proving it is more difficult. He and his family were trying to destroy Jack because they think he supplied her with the drugs she overdosed on.’ He let that sink into Mark’s brain.

  ‘So you know who shot him, then?’

  ‘No. Jack does, but he won’t tell us. We think it was someone from out of town, hired by Jane’s family.’

  ‘Hired killers?’ Mark gulped.

  Christie shrugged. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘And the drive-by shooting at the KFC?’

  ‘Their first attempt to kill Jack.’

  ‘And they very nearly killed an innocent person, that girl who works there.’

  ‘Would it surprise you to know that Jane Grice had been going out with Jonny Sparks?’ Christie asked.

  ‘I think I vaguely knew that,’ Mark said ponderously. He narrowed his eyes and looked at Christie. ‘Did he …?’

  ‘Give her the drugs that killed her? Think so. She’d been told by her father to dump Jonny and I think it was his revenge for being jilted. Jilted Jonny, you might say.’

  ‘The bastard,’ Mark whispered hoarsely.

  ‘Jonny was a psychopath, a very dangerous and manipulative one,’ Christie explained. ‘I think he deliberately gave Jane Grice the overdose and did the same to Bethany – although I don’t think I’ll ever prove either. He loved the power, loved manipulating people – a bit like a Harold Shipman character, you know, the doctor who killed all those old people who were his patients?’ Mark nodded. ‘Which in a way was why it was relatively easy for you to gain his trust – because he thought he had power over you, had a hold.’

  ‘Y’know, I could never work out why he was always after me. I never did owt to him, yet he was always chasin’ me. He was just crazy, I suppose. Wanted to control me.’

  ‘Which doesn’t mean to say I don’t want to catch his killers. I do, and I won’t rest until they’re behind bars.’

  ‘No, I get that,’ Mark conceded. ‘However,’ Mark went on bitterly, ‘he got what he deserved and he did kill Bethany … and do you know why? Because she dumped him, just like Jane Grice did. I had a real go at her for seeing him, she must have realized she was being an idiot knocking about with him and so she decided to ditch him, which is why he killed her—’

  ‘Whoa – hold on! Impossible to prove now,’ Christie said.

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ Mark said. ‘Jonny did it and those two lads who traipsed around after him, Sam and Eric, helped him out and stupid as they are, they’re guilty of murder too. I just didn’t know these things at first. I do now.’

  Christie leaned back with a sigh, folded his arms and looked pityingly at him. ‘Mark, Mark, Mark,’ he said sadly. ‘I know you’re upset …’

  ‘Don’t patronize me, Henry,’ he warned the detective. Mark fished out a mobile phone from his pocket, the one Jonny had given him just before he died. The one Jonny used to contact the Crackman with. He selected the media programme, pressed start on a particular file and handed the phone to Christie.

  ‘Watch this. This was happening while I was asleep upstairs,’ he said, swallowing back something in his throat.

  He did, appalled by what he saw. When the clip ended he said, ‘I need to keep this.’ Mark nodded. ‘Unbelievable, the bastard recorded Bethany dying, bragging about it, laughing … Jesus … and his mates helped too, plying her with more and more drugs, coaxing her to swallow them.’

  Christie watched the clip again, which concluded with Jonny Sparks leering into the lens and saying, ‘So, girls, never dump Jonny, otherwise you’ll suffer.’

  One of his mates, either Eric or Sam, had been recording the mini-speech and as it finished, the camera moved away from Jonny and was pointed at Bethany down on the kitchen floor, her body convulsing and retching horribly as she approached death.

  ‘He told me he had nothing to do with her death,’ Mark said stonily, ‘and you know what? I almost believed him. I feel so stupid.’

  ‘Their feet won’t touch the ground, I promise,’ Christie said earnestly, referring to Sam and Eric.

  ‘Whatever,’ Mark shrugged. ‘Beth’s not coming back, Jack’s in jail and me mam’s a slapper.’ He looked as though he was going to cry.

  ‘And you are one helluva lad,’ Christie said, placing a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Yeah, right, that’s me, a helluva lad.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Get back to school. Get my job back at the newsagent’s, if they’ll have me. Make my friends again.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘I have unfinished business with Katie, if you know what I mean? Get my head down and get out of this shit hole – eventually. But, first things first.’ He pointed at Christie. ‘I want my bike back.’

  Epilogue

  Once again, Henry Christie was sitting in an excuse for a car on a rainy night, just after the witching hour, parked up in a dimly-lit back street, but the location had changed: this time he was somewhere in Rochdale, a grimy town to the north of Manchester. Again, he was shivering as the heater wasn’t working properly and as he reached forward to crank up the temperature – without success – and had to wipe the screen with his hand, he wondered if it was the same bloody car.

  He glanced at Rik Dean in the passenger seat. ‘OK, mate?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘How’s the leg?’

  ‘Had a bullet in it, y’know?’ He shrugged. ‘Still not great.’

  ‘But good enough to be out here tonight?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said enthusiastically.

  Henry smiled and looked forward again, snorting a quiet puff of amazement down his nose. Incredible, he thought, how things could snowball.

  Who could possibly have known what would have happened as a result of him picking up his mobile phone four months ago and reluctantly agreeing, despite his terrible hangover that day, to turn out to what appeared to be a run-of-the-mill drugs OD.

  What had started as a routine, though tragic, set of circumstances which had not really interested him all that much initially, had led to the brutal murder of a teenager and a shoot-out on a council estate in which one man was almost fatally injured, that man being Jack Carter, the Crackman.

  Who Henry had nicked.

  Following Jack’s arrest, Henry had pounced on Jonny Sparks’s running mates, Eric King (The Kong) and Sam Dale (Rat-head), finding them easy meat. Two dumb-ass no-hopers who’d completely screwed up their lives by associating with Jonny. They had blabbed until the cows came home when confronted with the evidence on Jonny’s phone. />
  Despite their being teenagers, they had been charged with murder, even though he knew it would probably be reduced to manslaughter when, or even before, it came to court. That wasn’t his problem. He’d done his bit.

  And then they were boxed away. Henry had quickly moved focus.

  Like a terrier on a postman’s leg, he went for the Grice family.

  As much as he was sympathetic to the fact they had lost their daughter through drugs, he did not like the way in which they had gone about exacting their revenge.

  The hiring of professional hit men to kill Jack Carter, to drive a knife into Jonny Sparks’s heart and to mow down one of Carter’s dealers in Fleetwood, was not something Henry could tolerate.

  Not only that, an innocent girl had nearly lost her life in the Kentucky Fried Chicken drive-by shooting that had been the first attempt on Jack’s life. She had almost been forgotten in the mess, but Henry had decided – in a high and mighty way – that someone had to seek justice for her.

  He had decided he would be that seeker and would not rest until he had ground the Grice family into the dust and hunted down the killers they had hired.

  Rik Dean looked at him. ‘How good is this intel?’ he asked impatiently.

  ‘Of the very highest calibre,’ Henry assured him.

  ‘Only my leg’s getting stiff.’

  Henry was aware that this was the first time that Rik had stepped out operationally since the shooting. ‘You could’ve stayed in your shiny-arsed office.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’

  Their good-natured bickering ended and silence came down on the pair.

  The Grice family had been tough and unapproachable and Henry had got nowhere with them. Not that he had expected anything more. They were all hardened criminals, top professionals, and ran a tight operation, but not as tight as their lips. There was no way they would incriminate themselves, so Henry decided to try and come at them from another angle, but try as he might, that angle eluded him for a long time.

  Then, three weeks into it, as he shuffled and reshuffled everything in his mind, something struck him, something that Mark Carter had told him.