by Lee Weeks
As Carter took his drink and sat down on one of the long wooden pews against the far left wall, a group of people came through the doors bringing with them a blast of cold air. They were led by a female tour guide.
‘We’re not buying a drink,’ she announced. ‘Just showing people what a great pub this is.’ The barman took no notice; he was used to it. He continued with his task of polishing the beer taps.
The woman led the five people on the tour to stand directly in front of Carter.
‘Here is where George Cornell was sitting when he was murdered by Ronnie Kray.’
‘Yeah, I’ve just finished cleaning up the mess,’ Carter said, winking at one of the women. She giggled.
The tour guide was not impressed: she was expecting Carter to relocate, which he didn’t feel inclined to do. She moved them quickly along to the next poster on the wall detailing the Krays’ lives in the area. Carter was joined at the table by a man with an orange juice in his hand and a small dog beside him.
‘You trying to scare me?’ Carter nodded towards the orange juice. ‘All right, Melvin? Scamp?’
‘Just trying to prepare myself for the festive season, that’s all. It’s a busy time for me. I’m expected to have a drink with my punters and there are a lot of tourists heading this way.’
‘Of course, all these eager tourists wanting to know the murderous side of the good old East End.’
‘When you retire you can give me a hand if you like.’
‘Yeah, maybe, thanks, mate. But I’m a way off that and, when I do retire, I’ll try to avoid any job which has murder in its job description.’
‘Offer stays open. You might change your mind. It’s a growing trade. What we need is more funerals like Eddie Butcher’s. Pity he wasn’t as notorious as the Krays but lucky they’re all on this patch. It’s a hotspot.’
‘I can see that. You have competition.’ Carter turned to watch and listen to the tour guide: she was running through the Krays’ life history.
‘Don’t worry about her. That’s Janice. She doesn’t know how to sell it. She’s only got three stars on TripAdvisor. Twenty quid a head she charges and it’s not worth it.’
‘She charges the same as you, then.’
‘Exactly, but mine’s top-drawer.’ He laughed. ‘Genuine article, links to the actual family and all that.’
‘An affair and a bastard child is stretching family connections.’
‘It don’t matter. It still counts. Anyway, I’ve put it up now, it’s twenty-five.’
Carter laughed. ‘Bargain.’
‘Let’s move.’ Melvin picked up his drink. ‘Want to go in the garden?’
‘Not really. It’s frigging cold. Even Scamp’s not keen.’
The dog had gone to sit by the woman on the laptop near the fire.
‘They have a patio heater. Come on. Scamp!’
Carter stood, picking up his wine. ‘It just makes me want a cigarette whenever I go into the garden in a pub,’ he said, following Melvin. ‘If I’m truthful, I want a cigarette wherever I go,’ moaned Carter, as they stepped into the nicely laid-out garden area with covered seats and water features.
They walked past the Christmas tree with hanging icicle lights, and sat down near the patio heater. Melvin began rolling a cigarette. Scamp jumped on his lap. Melvin Pratt was a man in his early forties who had grown up in the area, in the shadow of the Krays. His dad had been a friend to the Krays and a petty criminal who boxed with the brothers in the gym down the road. His mother’s cousin was rumoured to have had an affair and a child with Reggie. Melvin had always been at the edge of success. He’d been doing well on a market stall selling bric-a-brac until the Trading Standards Department closed him down. He’d been a delivery man for the brewery until his back went. He’d raised a kid who, it turned out, wasn’t his, and then his wife left him for another woman. Now he had carved out a niche for himself in the community that owed him.
He took out his phone and handed it to Carter to see the photos on it. Carter began swiping the photos.
‘I didn’t even know half of these people were still alive,’ Carter said as Melvin grinned proudly.
‘Yeah, I got some proper old-school villains. I haven’t put these on my website yet but they’re going to look great. I’m going to wipe out the competition with this. Everyone will see that I’m the genuine article, someone who knew the Krays, who knows the gangsters. Still does.’
‘Yeah, can’t argue with that.’ Carter swiped through, looking for faces he had missed on the day. Most of the ones he saw were known to him. He stopped at a scene from the Blind Beggar in the evening.
‘Who’s that?’
‘No idea; I was three sheets by that time. Let me see again.’ He took the phone from Carter and began stretching the photo as he squinted at it. ‘Oh yeah. He knew Eddie.’
Carter began sending the photos he wanted across to his phone.
‘Oi! Give me that, there could be personal stuff on that. Tell me first which ones you’re having.’
‘Finished now.’ Carter handed back the phone. He slid a hundred pounds across in a tight roll. Melvin took it and smoked his cigarette while they waited for the barman to leave. He’d come outside to switch on the fairy lights.
‘Tell me, did you see anything interesting that evening?’
‘I saw a few of your mates working. Some of them very good but you have to be from the East End to really talk to the old boys. Luckily for you, I am. The talk was all about Harold and Tony having failed their brother.’
‘What were they saying?’
‘Everyone was talking about how this was down to them. If not directly ordered, then it was a deal gone wrong. People liked Eddie. They were badmouthing Tony. Seems like he’s bringing a lot of foreign muscle into these streets. Harold has been stirring up the young gangs; no one likes it. It means nothing but trouble for us. We have gang fights daily now. Sooner or later riot police going to be living on these streets. Then the gentrification process will be on hold, disaster!’
‘Let’s hope it won’t come to that. What else are people saying? Did they think that one of the young gangs could have done it?’
He shook his head.
‘I know a couple of the lads in the gangs. I asked them what it was all about, all the fighting, and the turf wars. They said it’s all about the drug cartels. But Harold is losing his grip and there’s a new man in town.’
‘Is there anyone I should be talking to?’
‘One of the photos on my phone I was saving for you.’
Melvin brought up an image from a locked folder. It was a man walking along the road outside St Matthew’s Church.
‘This guy is your new man. His name is Marco. We’ve seen a bit of him recently. He works for Tony and the Mendez cartel.’
‘Was he here for the funeral?’
‘I didn’t see him.’
‘Where did you get this?’
‘I took this photo when I was sitting with Lev in the bakery. He pointed out this guy as he walked down the road. Then he came in.’
‘What was he like?’ Carter asked.
‘Funny mix. Spoke English with a South American accent but he was mixed with white. Tall guy, heavy-set-looking, tough, ugly.’
‘What did he want in Lev’s?’
‘Usual: a bagel, smoked salmon, cream cheese.’ Melvin grinned. Carter reached for his wallet.
‘What else?’
‘Not much. I got the feeling he came in to check me out. He sat there staring at me, so I tried to make conversation, offered him a tour. I was friendly. He wanted to know what I knew about the old buildings around the church. I told him there wasn’t much I didn’t know. I was born and brought up in the area, I told him.’
‘Was he interested in a building in particular?’
‘Didn’t seem so,’ Melvin said. ‘I told him that I could tell him a lot more if he paid me for a tour. He got a call and he got up to leave. On his way out he threatened me.’
>
Carter frowned. ‘How?’
‘He told me if he saw me taking any photos of him on my phone, he’d shove the phone somewhere the sun don’t shine.’
‘What about Lev? What did he do?’
‘He didn’t do or say anything while the man was in the bakery,’ Melvin said. ‘Lev just pretended to be really busy. I caught him watching us. After the man had left Lev told me I should think of staying away from the area for a bit.’
‘Why?’ Carter asked.
‘He wouldn’t say. He just shook his head with a “Don’t say I didn’t warn you” type of look.’
‘Did it worry you?’
‘Me?’ Melvin laughed. ‘No, of course not. I’ve lived with worse than him. He ought to have been here with the Kray generation.’
‘These new ones are a lot worse, believe me,’ Carter said. ‘Keep yourself safe, Melvin. You’ve done enough for me now. If you see this guy Marco coming your way, then turn round.’
Melvin snorted. ‘I can’t do that, no way. This is my business we’re talking about. I’m not going to alter my route just to suit him. If he keeps hanging around here, that’s his problem.’
Chapter 15
‘Something you want to get off your chest, Harold?’
Harold had asked if he could speak to Tony in his office. He left the others arguing around the dinner table. After a few drinks, past grievances were exhumed for a re-examine, but proved just as rotten as when they were buried first time round. Sandra was hell-bent on getting as drunk as possible; she was quietly fuming that Della had talked to her like that. Laurence was brooding and Debbie was doing her best to be a good hostess.
Tony opened his desk drawer and took out a bag of cocaine. It expanded onto the desk like a collapsing snowball.
He tore open the top and shovelled out a large mound with his fingers. He set about the process of chopping and cutting, scraping it and smoothing any lumps with a diligence that consumed him for ten minutes while Harold watched and waited. Finished, Tony rolled a note and offered it across to Harold who half-heartedly snorted up a part of a line and wiped it back out of his nose into his hand.
‘We shouldn’t be treating Eddie’s widow like that.’
Tony’s head swivelled back and forth, as if he were trying to free his neck from a tight collar, and then his eyes settled on Harold.
‘Like what?’
‘You intend taking everything she has away from her? Can you do that? Take everything from Della?’
‘Everything.’ Tony smiled sickly sweet. He stood.
‘Why take the business from her? At least leave her that.’
‘I’ve been waiting a long time to get my hands on that business and all the other little projects that Eddie thought I didn’t know about.’
‘The police will never stop watching it, if you have anything to do with Paradise Villas,’ said Harold. ‘You won’t be able to launder money through it. You won’t even be allowed to build a garden shed. It’s no use to you now.’
‘Laurence will run it. It’s time he earned his place in this family.’ Tony was getting irritable with Harold’s continued questioning of his methods. ‘Laurence is even more respectable than Eddie was.’
‘Maybe, but I can’t see Della going quietly. We both know she’s clever, stubborn.’
‘Leave it to me,’ Tony said with a sigh, as if it always came down to the same solution. Tony had to do everything himself.
‘What do you want me to do when I get back to the UK? We have to do something about Eddie, people are expecting it. I don’t know if they’re going to believe that Francisco got the payment.’
‘Yes, they will, at least for a few days. This is a good opportunity for these young gangs. We’re going to need some men we trust around us when it gets bigger than we can handle. We act fast and furious and we kill the fuckers before they kill us. Promise them a part of the drugs distribution after it leaves here. Promise them anything but make them kill every last one of the Mendez cartel in the UK.’
Harold shook his head, worried. ‘How do we know they killed Eddie?’
‘Who else could it have been? You have any suspects you want to name?’
Harold shook his head. He stayed where he was. Tony leaned back in his Italian leather chair and rocked as he continued drinking whisky from a cut-glass tumbler, stolen from the Godfather set.
Tony eyeballed Harold before exploding in a shower of spit and facial expressions that would have scared someone doing the haka.
‘Are you fucking kidding me, Harold? Let me ask you something. Did you see what they did to Eddie? Did you? Did you?’
‘Of course I did. I identified his body.’
‘Who else would have done that but the cartel? They want their money, Harold. We need to get hold of a hundred million and we need it now. When they realise Francisco’s dead and the money still isn’t in their hands then they will come for each of us. You must strike first. Get some balls, Harold. What the fuck has happened to you? You’ve gone soft.’
Harold spoke: ‘The cartel don’t care about the money: it’s the principle.’
Tony opened his eyes slowly and focused on Harold. He was in his customary-post snorting position of leaning back, head tilted backwards, eyes closed to stop them from watering. His Adam’s apple moved up and down his throat.
‘A Colombian drugs cartel with principles, huh? You’re more stupid than I thought.’
‘They want proof the shipment went missing,’ continued Harold cautiously, hurt but nervous. ‘If it was confiscated by the police in Amsterdam, they want to see the papers. They said they can see there is no shortage of top-grade cocaine in the UK right now.’
‘Look and listen, Harold. Eric the smackhead, or some other nobody, stole their shipment. It’s being snorted in every corner of Amsterdam, right now. What does it matter any more? We have a war on now and we’re going to win it or die.’
Harold wasn’t ready to drop the subject. There was a lot sloshing around in his mind. He knew his days as Tony’s sidekick were numbered. He knew Marco was the young buck in the rut but he didn’t know if that meant he had to die, or if he could just accept retirement. Another thing he didn’t feel right about: he seriously hadn’t seen Eddie’s death coming. Eddie was the best one of the bunch. That made Harold more nervous than ever. If they could kill Eddie, they could kill any of them.
Tony gave a bored roll of the eyes and made a tick-tock motion with his head.
‘Are you fucking in or out?’ he screamed in Harold’s sweating face.
Harold chewed on the inside of his lip. His rubbery features had begun to blur into dark purple.
‘They’re not going to forgive us, Tony. You made me part of this. You went behind my back and organised Marco to step in and get the shipment, and then he killed our man in Amsterdam. Why the need to cheat them?’
Tony slammed his palms on the desk and the cocaine dust showered it. ‘In or out, out, yes? I don’t want their forgiveness. They can stick it up their Colombian arses. I want to cause them maximum damage all along their chain. I want them to sweat while we get together enough money to go over their heads to the real men in the game.’
Harold paused as realisation kicked in. ‘You don’t want to fuck with these guys, Tony.’
‘Don’t I? Really, Harold? It’s too late for that. We’re taking over, Harold, and you better be ready. You want to be my right-hand man still? This is your time to shine, Harold. I need someone who is a hundred and ten per cent. That you, Harold, hey?’
Chapter 16
‘Any more on Billy Manson, the manager from Paradise Villas?’ Carter asked, as he came in and sat down to attend the meeting with Chief Inspector Bowie. It was seven p.m. Willis and Robbo were already there in Bowie’s office.
‘How did his alibi fit in with events, Robbo?’
‘His wife confirmed that they were at the council fireworks display,’ answered Robbo. ‘There’s CCTV footage; we can see his wife Jo pushing the
buggy with their youngest child in it. The other child is walking beside. We can’t see Manson himself. His wife said that they separated while Manson went off to get them something to eat. It’s too crowded to pick them up again.’
‘So, we can’t categorically rule him out,’ said Bowie, ‘but what would be his motive?’
‘He has a five per cent share in Paradise Villas,’ answered Carter with a half-shrug. ‘It’s not likely, but this could all have been about him wanting a bigger slice or a disagreement about the way the business was going. He seemed to be really sacred of the knock-on effect with clients if they are put off by the nature of Eddie’s death.’
‘I can understand that, even allowing for the type of clients Eddie had, they’re going to wonder what kind of person gets killed like this. They’re going to wonder whose toes he trod on. If Manson is in the frame then we need to ask ourselves what his plan would be,’ Bowie said from behind his desk. ‘What would he gain from killing his business partner?’
‘It could be he gains nothing, but he is covering up some wrongdoing that could hurt his business. What if Eddie had started to go in a direction Manson didn’t approve of?’
‘What did you think of him when you met him?’ asked Bowie.
Carter answered, ‘Not my type. Public school gone wrong. Probably carried the hopes and aspirations of pushy middle-class parents who sent him to a low-quality, fee-paying school and he didn’t make the grade, even then. He came out only good at working with his hands and they couldn’t afford or didn’t have the contacts to find him a job on the old boys’ network. So Manson ends up making bespoke kitchens for a living, not a bad job by anybody’s standards, but he still hankers after this rich lifestyle. He still feels like he just isn’t good enough. That’s what Eddie saw in him when he met him. He saw a well-spoken, well-dressed carpenter, who might be perfect in his business. But, fifteen years down the line, did it all go wrong?’
Willis was staring at Carter with an astounded expression on her face.
‘What?’ asked Carter. ‘Do you think you’re the only one with an insight into people’s characters?’ He grinned at her. ‘So, I’d like to delve deeper into the life of Billy Manson.’
