by Lee Weeks
‘This is my home. I feel like everything’s falling apart, Dan.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘Oh, the usual hate-filled rhetoric from Sandra. Harold saying nothing about who killed Eddie, or why, but he has guilt written all over his face. Tony is getting madder by the day. He says Eddie had some sort of secret life that got him killed. Laurence is just being himself. I’m not sure about what he feels. He’s laid-back about the whole thing. Considering what happened to Eddie, I don’t know how that can be possible. Maybe he thinks none of it affects him.
‘Tony tried to rape me earlier on today. He obviously has keys and passcodes to here.’
‘Can you make your house more secure?’
‘I get the feeling they’ll find me if I leave. Marco, this moron, is staying here in my villa. Tony’s sent him down to watch me. He’s my jailer, as far as I can tell.’ She sighed. ‘Sorry, Dan. Christ knows, you’re probably the last person who wants me ringing him up and asking for support.’
‘I think you need to get out till all this calms down, Della. I won’t lie, I’ve already had a ticking-off from Bowie.’
‘What does he say?’
‘Getting too close, once bitten, that kind of thing.’
‘But, we were kids then.’
‘Does it feel like that long ago to you?’ Carter asked.
‘No, you’re right. It feels like yesterday. I heard you went to see Mum and Dad?’
‘I did. It was lovely to see them looking so well. But, I shan’t go again. We need to keep them out of this.’
‘I know,’ Della said. ‘None of the Butchers know about them. Or I seriously hope they don’t. Mum said you came with your partner. She’s a lovely woman, good appetite, apparently.’
‘Ha, yeah, that’s my colleague, Ebony.’
‘They said you have a kid now. Are you married?’ Della asked.
‘No, but we will bite the bullet someday, I expect.’
‘What’s she called?’
‘My girlfriend’s name is Cabrina.’
‘And your son?’
‘Archie.’
‘Archie? What a great name. We were never blessed with children.’
‘Not too late.’
‘I better hurry up,’ Della replied. ‘I’m not far behind you, remember.’
‘Two years.’
‘Yes.’
‘I better go, Della.’ Carter sighed.
‘Yes, I understand. Night, Dan.’
‘Night. Lock all your doors.’
Carter stood for a few minutes in thought and then he rang Cabrina.
‘Hello, babe, sorry if it’s late.’
‘No, don’t be silly, I was just dreaming about you.’
‘Something sexy, I hope.’
‘Of course. I can’t believe how much I’m missing you.’
‘Me too. Where’s the little man?’
‘He’s in here with me, taking up all the bed. He had a lovely day on the beach. He made a friend, a little girl called Sky.’
‘Sweet.’
‘Yes, so cute, they played for hours. I’ve gone really brown already.’
‘I’m looking forward to checking you for tan lines.’
She giggled. Carter grinned to himself. ‘Love you, babe,’ he said on a sigh.
‘And you. Night.’
‘Night.’
Carter put his phone back in his pocket and headed back to Fletcher House.
Chapter 19
Della poured herself another glass of wine and put some more logs on the fire pit and then she sat back down and tilted her chair back and looked at the stars. By eleven she had finished a bottle of wine. She looked up to see Sandra on her patio.
‘You going to invite me in for a drink?’
‘Christ! Don’t I get any privacy in my own home? Does everyone have keys to my place?’
‘Sorry, didn’t mean to disturb you, came to say sorry about this evening. Came to make peace. I don’t have keys. I walked up the lane and through the almond grove.’
‘Really?’ Della looked out towards the dark and squinted at a light that flickered in the darkness. ‘Who else is out there?’
‘No one. I came on my own.’
‘What were you doing out there?’
‘I was taking a stroll, saw your fire and thought I needed to really explain things and apologise, of course. Things are so difficult for all of us, but I don’t want to fall out.’ She looked around. ‘You been burning stuff?’
‘Not really, just relaxing.’
‘I brought some wine with me. Will you drink with me? Let’s drink to our Eddie. No matter what you think, Della, I know how much Eddie adored you and you did him.’
‘Okay. Yes. I suppose so.’
Della held up her empty glass and Sandra filled it.
‘This is French. You like that, don’t you?’
‘I prefer it, yes.’
‘Can I sit here?’ She pulled up another lounger. ‘Cheers!’ She raised her glass. ‘I don’t want to fall out now. We need one another. We’re family, after all. You’re still a Butcher. Cheers! To Eddie, the best son a mother could have.’
‘Cheers!’
‘Let’s get steaming drunk together and talk bullshit through the night. Then we’ll have breakfast by the fire, watch the sun come up and it will be a new start for us. How about that? Cheers!’
‘Cheers, Sandra! I’d like that. Eddie and I often watched the sun come up sat here. It’s magnificent, isn’t it?’
‘Best time of the day. Come on, drink up. I want to hear all about the good times you and Eddie shared.’
Della leaned across to have her glass refilled by Sandra and nearly fell out of the chair.
‘Sorry.’
‘No problem, I’ve got it.’ Sandra filled Della’s glass and stood to hand it to her.
‘I must be more drunk than I thought. I better ease off or I’m not going to make it till dawn. I’ll be asleep in this chair.’
‘You must be so tired, aren’t you?’
‘Tonight it seems to be catching up with me.’
Della looked at Sandra and she couldn’t see her straight any more. It wasn’t like drink. It wasn’t double vision. It was split into so many parts, frames, like looking into a distorted mirror at the fairground. She heard Tony’s laughter, his voice, he was singing: ‘Burn, baby, burn . . .’
Della looked towards the fire and it multiplied, and Tony sprang at her.
‘Leave me alone. Get out of my house.’
‘Whose house?’
‘I want you to go, all of you. Leave!’ Della clutched at the side of her chair to help steady herself and stand but her hand missed and she fell sideways. Her hand contacted the cold patio floor. She heard Sandra laugh. Della flipped onto her knees and began to crawl away as Sandra’s laughter kept ringing and she heard the crackling of the logs, felt the heat of the fire pit as she rolled too close and tried to push herself away. She crawled into the cool darkness. Tony’s legs blocked her way. She tried to move past them but she felt her back painfully squashed. She felt her face pushed into the concrete. Pain as her ribcage was squashed. Tony’s weight bounced on her back.
‘Get off her.’ Della heard Debbie’s voice. ‘That’s enough. Let her go.’ Debbie’s voice came into Della’s consciousness. ‘Leave her, I said. What the fuck is happening here? Sandra, what’s going on? Is she stoned?’ Debbie asked.
‘Yeah. We found her like that. Tony and I were just calling on her. We found her drunk. She’s a slut, a slag. With all her fine graces, she tried it on with Tony. I saw it myself.’
Della shook her head, she vomited on the patio. She was swaying like a sick animal. On her knees. She puked several times.
Debbie looked at Sandra.
‘You go and I’ll tend to her.’
Tony started laughing. He picked Della up from under her armpits and he shook her in the air like a trophy.
‘Reckon she weighs eight stone, at two hundred degr
ees – what’s that? About ten hours?’ He laughed. Sandra started laughing hysterically.
‘Tony, tell your wife to go back to her own house. Tell her to mind her own business. I fancy a barbecue.’
‘Tony, don’t do this. This isn’t right. This is madness.’
‘Debbie, get the fuck out of here. Do as you’re told.’ Tony let Della drop and she tried to crawl forwards again.
‘Della is part of this family, you ought to leave her alone. Sandra? Come on, it’s not right, this. Tony, what are you doing?’
‘Just a little fun, Debbie.’ He nudged Della with his foot and she groaned. She was like a stick insect moving painfully slowly from one leaf to another. She wobbled on her stick-thin limbs, hands and knees. She wobbled and shook as she inched her way forward.
Tony kicked her in her stomach and she exhaled in a groan and fought for breath as she rolled onto her side and curled up.
‘Tony!’
‘What, Debbie? You think this is bad? You see how my brother died?’
‘That had nothing to do with Della.’
‘Didn’t it?’ screamed Sandra. ‘She’s been a snake in the grass for so long, turning him against his own family, encouraging him to move away, turn his back on us all. She’s the reason why Eddie did what he did and now we are facing a fucking Colombian death squad because of her.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘No, you don’t, and you should be grateful for that. Go back to the villa, Debbie, and thank your lucky fucking stars you don’t understand the problems this woman has caused.’
As Della heard the row starting between them she tried to get to her feet. She stumbled among the stunted old trees and the scrubby bushes out towards the wasteland and the almond grove. She tried so hard to stay on her feet and move but it was as if her legs were spaghetti dropped into boiling water. They buckled beneath her. She crawled forwards, dragging herself away from the villa and towards the stone hut she could see in the distance. Beneath her hands the ground softened. She heard voices again and heard her own voice, desperate, crying, pleading with her body to move. But above her own voice she heard the sound of a child crying. She dug with her fingers into the soft earth that seemed to be collapsing beneath her. The voice called to her, a child in pain, a child asking for help. It seemed to be coming from beneath her hands.
She dug as the pain shot deep into the bones in her fingers. She pulled away at the earth where she could get a hold and it seemed to give at her touch. She was getting close to the child now. She felt the line of a body beneath her hands. She dug deeper as the child called louder and Della speeded up her efforts until her fingers traced the outline of a face in the earth. She worked harder, to scrape away the earth, and the moonlight cast a shadow behind her as someone stood watching. Her fingers found the open eyes of Francisco.
Marco stood laughing behind her.
Chapter 20
10 December
Carter had written three headings on the whiteboard beside the video screen.
Eddie was killed by a client of his from paradise Villas
Eddie stepped into new territory and was killed because of it
Eddie was killed because of brother Tony’s activities
An officer from the National Crime Agency, the Organised Crime Command division, had agreed to work with them and share their intelligence. At the officer’s request, they were gathered in the video room. Fifteen chairs were laid out in front of a desk with a video screen behind. Five of the chairs were occupied. As well as Robbo, Willis, Carter and DCI Bowie, there was also Pam. Carter had decided that the first words of the OCC officer should be heard by a limited few. Bowie had invited himself. Carter had wanted it to be an informal meeting in Robbo’s office but that wasn’t what Ross, the OCC detective inspector, had wanted.
Carter introduced the tall, dark-haired man, who was wearing a smart, well-fitting, dark-blue suit and a patterned shirt, with pink tones. He looked like someone who loved buying clothes, who would have a colour-coded wardrobe and who never put on more than an extra pound before taking action. His face had the smoothness of a younger man than his forty-two years. There was a feminine quality to his long thin hands.
‘This is David Ross – he’s an inspector in the National Crime Agency, Organised Crime Command. Welcome, thanks for coming.’
‘Thank you and good morning.’ He spoke from his position behind the desk with an open laptop connected to the video screen behind him. His voice had a hint of Northern in it.
‘Thank you for inviting me in to work alongside you in your investigation into Eddie Butcher’s death. I have been given authority to share some relevant information with you. I’d like to begin by pointing out that’ – he turned to face the whiteboard and Carter’s headings – ‘at this present time, I can probably only help with just one of these scenarios. Tony Butcher has been in our sights for a long time. We have him under constant surveillance.’
A photo of Eddie Butcher with his brother Tony came on the screen behind him.
He turned to look at the screen.
‘By “we”, I mean that it is an international effort with the Spanish police.’
Ross flicked through some photos of the Butchers and Eddie with Harold.
‘Because we monitor their comings and goings, their activities, to a certain extent we also monitor Eddie Butcher. Eddie has not been of any real interest to the British police force for ten years now. He has been building villas for ex-cons and has been paying his taxes so he’s left alone. But, when Eddie was with either one of his brothers, we took notice and we were also alerted by the Spanish police when Eddie, or any of the family, were on the move.’
More close-up photos and aerial shots of the two villas came onto the screen. There were photos of Eddie and Harold outside Lineker’s Bar in Puerto Banús. There were photos of Eddie at a black-tie charity golfers’ event.
‘Here we were taking photos of all those members attending what was, on the surface, a charity dinner, but in reality was a get-together of most of the drug barons and ex-cons living in Marbella. There is no doubt Eddie mixed with these sort. He knew and liked them, but was he one? We have no intelligence linking him with any organised crime.
‘The surveillance on Eddie was low-key. So the information I’m about to share with you was collated as part of our ongoing investigation into Tony Butcher’s worryingly expanding drugs empire and Harold “the Enforcer” Butcher. There’s a lot of footage, which I’ve tried to edit for you. Here is what we know of the last visit Eddie made to the UK.’
Ross started a slideshow of images, which began with photos of Eddie at the wheel of his G wagon.
‘Here, Monday, October the 26th, Eddie is on his way to the airport with his wife Della in the passenger seat. They are on their way to the Málaga International Airport, where Eddie boards a plane to the UK. Later we see Della arrive back home on her own.
‘But a day later, we have the real cause for our interest. This man, Marco Zapata, also leaves for the UK. He’s the illegitimate son of one of the cartel families. The Zapata are rising stars in the distribution network. They’re taking over the distribution of much of the cocaine into America and now Europe. They don’t grow, they don’t manufacture: they move the cocaine.
‘We have hit a time when the Colombian cartels are fractured and, instead of the massive cartels we’ve seen in the past, smaller ones have taken on specific roles: distribution, manufacture, America or Europe, et cetera. No one large cartel now rules them. They try to coexist. There are many more openings for entrepreneurs like Tony, but he will need the help of someone like Marco. But Marco didn’t rise very far in the Zapata cartel. He started his career as a hitman, and he was not welcomed into the fold. There was sibling rivalry. So, he took off for Europe on his own to try and muscle in on some bigger action, and there he found Tony. When Marco first arrived in Spain, he was linked to a shipment of arms that was traced to a Colombian death squad unit. The arms included
automatic rifles, grenades and an anti-tank missile. But Marco escaped prosecution and he’s been working for Tony for the last nine months. He’s been doing essentially the same job as Harold does, but he’s been doing it in Spain.
‘We’ve been tracking Marco. He’s been to the UK and to Amsterdam several times. He was there, the Amsterdam police tell us, when a man was murdered, his throat cut, and he was found floating in the canal. That man was believed to be the Mendez cartel’s, responsible for switching the cocaine from one container ship to another when it comes over from South America. When it arrives in Spain, it’s up to another team of Tony’s to come up with ways of getting it to the UK. The Amsterdam police believe that this man’s death was down to Marco. He was seen with him on the day he disappeared. But they don’t have enough to charge him with so they’ve agreed to shelve their investigation so that we can watch Marco and hopefully get him some other way. We are not sure who Marco holds allegiance to.’
Ross paused to check his notes.
‘We believe Tony must have ordered the death of the man in Amsterdam. The Mendez cartel came looking for what had happened to the drugs shipment that Tony says never arrived, and what happened to the money that Tony said he already paid to the dead man in Amsterdam. We are convinced that Eddie’s death has to do with this shift in power. We are thinking this was either a case of mistaken identity or, more possible, revenge. The Mendez cartel may want to continue doing business with Tony, so they kill Eddie as a warning, as a punishment for transgressing. But we know it can’t end there. This is a major problem that’s about to hit our streets, with two warring cartels playing out their feud in the East End and all the gangs flexing their muscles ready for the fight. I know that we will work better as a team if we can come together on this. Any questions?’
‘What progress has been made with catching Tony Butcher?’ asked Robbo. ‘What is the position right now?’
‘We believe that Tony and Marco are setting up an operation together and looking to get rid of any opposition to the Zapata family taking over the Mendez routes. But who do they count as opposition? Definitely any Mendez cartel members. That’s a lot of people involved to get rid of; it filters down to the young gangs in the capital’s streets. That’s been Harold’s job in recent months. He’s recruiting from the young gangs. He’s promising them big rewards. We have undercover officers working here and in Spain. We are as close as we can get to Tony.’
