by Lee Weeks
‘Yes, sir.’
Willis went back down the corridor to Robbo. He was working with Pam to try to locate where Carter had moved the diamonds.
‘What’s your brief?’ asked Robbo when Willis walked in.
‘The chief inspector is calling this one; I have to go about my business as if Carter isn’t missing,’ said Willis, obviously troubled. ‘We can’t afford to raise suspicions,’ she said. Robbo nodded.
‘Carter will be okay.’ Robbo laid a comforting hand on her shoulder.
‘I know but he’s hurt already.’
‘We don’t know that it’s his blood, not for sure,’ said Pam.
Willis nodded, but she didn’t look comforted.
‘I think the chief inspector’s right, Eb,’ said Robbo.
‘And if they kill him?’ said Willis. She sat down at the spare desk and logged on. ‘We have to try and find him. If Della is with him he will be under so much pressure to protect her. He will sacrifice himself.’
‘What if Della managed to get a message out to someone?’ asked Pam. ‘Who would it be, do you think? Who might she have called?’
‘She’d call her parents. Fredo’s Ristorante in Ramsgate,’ answered Willis.
‘Here’s the number,’ said Pam, looking on the Internet. ‘Do you want to ring?’
Willis took out her phone. Pam read off the number. Connie answered.
‘Connie, it’s Dan Carter’s colleague, Ebony. I was wondering if you’ve heard from Della in the last few days.’
‘No, I haven’t heard from her at all. Is she okay?’
‘Yes, I’m sure she is. It’s just I can’t locate her or Carter at the moment. If she calls you can you ring me on this number straight away?’
‘Of course. I was so sad about Billy Manson. Was it suicide?’
‘Yes, we’re treating it as suicide.’
‘He only came to see me recently. He brought a box of things from the office. He said they were papers to give to Della. They were Eddie’s things.’
‘Thanks. Please stay there. I’ll come and collect the box from you now.’
She came off the phone. ‘I’m driving down to Ramsgate, Robbo. Billy Manson left a box there just when the fireplaces were moved a week ago. Della’s mother Connie doesn’t know what’s in it. Billy told her there were things that belonged to Eddie but there could be something else he was hiding.’
‘Okay, well get back as fast as you can. We need to be on standby.’
Willis arrived an hour later and parked as near as she could get to Fredo’s. She rounded the corner and was buffeted by the gusting wind straight off the harbour.
‘Ebony, come in out of the cold. Have a coffee. We are just getting set up for lunch. What’s this all about? Where is Dan? Is he with Della?’
‘I think Dan is with her, yes. I can’t stop, sorry.’
‘Should we be worried? I don’t know why Della has not been in touch. What’s she doing over here?’
‘I can’t tell you anything, I’m afraid. I’m sure Della will tell you when you see her.’ Willis was desperate to go.
‘Okay, well I will wait to hear then.’ Connie hugged her. ‘Here.’ Connie handed over the box to Willis.
‘I can see you are worried. You keep in touch, please, Ebony.’
Willis nodded. She carried the box back to the car and opened it up as she sat in the driver’s seat. She phoned Robbo.
‘It looks interesting. There are mentions of his other companies. I’ll be back within the hour.’
As she was about to set off she got a text from Ross: ‘We lost shipment.’
Chapter 73
Carter looked up at the sound of voices. Jo jumped to his feet from his seat on the barrels; Della stirred. As they opened the door to the pub upstairs, daylight seeped inside the cellar.
Tony Butcher stood looking at Carter and shaking his head.
Tony was feeling the cold. He had borrowed a coat from Harold. The coat was too small and short on the arms. He had sandals on his feet, bare toes. He had found a red fleece blanket in the Transit van they’d hired, and wrapped it around himself and over his head, like an old Indian.
‘You better start talking, son. I can see you’re in a lot of pain.’ Tony signalled for Jo to remove Carter’s gag.
Carter tried to speak, his mouth was chalky dry. Tony gave him a drink of water.
‘Let Della go,’ said Carter. ‘She doesn’t know where the diamonds are, she told you. I took them off her, I hid them. I’ll tell you, if you let her go.’
‘You’ll tell us anyway, won’t he, Marco?’
Marco stepped forward with his cigarette and stubbed it out on Carter’s cheek. The sound and smell of his own flesh burning hit his nose with the pain. He flinched.
‘Marco knows how to get the best out of people,’ said Tony. ‘I admire your balls. What were you thinking? Get the girl, get the diamonds? You almost had it all. You were almost halfway to paradise.’ Tony laughed. ‘Eh, son? Eh? Eh?’
Marco stepped forward, made a flat hand and jabbed his fingers hard into Carter’s lower abdominals. Carter instinctively raised his knees as the pain hit, his shoulders jolted and he yelled in agony. He saw Della react out of the corner of his eyes. He saw her shoulders move as if she were crying. Marco jabbed again, repeatedly, as Carter’s shoulder joints began to strain at their sockets. Carter vomited bile. Marco went across to get his blowtorch.
Above the sound of Carter retching a phone rang.
Marco answered it.
‘The shipment is here. I’m not fucking around any more with this guy.’ Marco lit the blowtorch and walked across to Della. ‘We’ll make him talk.’
‘He doesn’t care if she isn’t left with a face. You better talk, Inspector,’ said Tony. ‘Tell me.’
‘The keys – they belong to a self-storage unit off junction twenty-six,’ said Carter. ‘You’ll see the signs then for Cotters self-storage units. The code you need to get in the gate is 1066. The storage unit is number thirty-nine.’
‘Untie her,’ said Laurence. ‘We’ll take her with us as insurance.’
‘No. They’re no use to us any more.’ Marco looked at Laurence and then at Tony.
‘You’re wrong, Marco. You are much too hasty. You rush head long in with that big fat head of yours and you don’t stop to think of the consequences. Cut him down,’ said Tony. ‘This one . . .’ He looked at Carter as he landed on the floor with a yell of pain as he was released from strappado. ‘This one is a fantastic bargaining tool for us.’
‘Exactly,’ Harold joined in. ‘You could be looking at your ticket out of here. Gag him again and leave him tied as he is. We’ll come back for him if we need him. I’m not taking him with us. He’ll be trouble.’
‘What about her?’ asked Marco.
‘She comes with us. I haven’t done with her,’ said Laurence. Tony looked at him curiously and grinned.
‘Now we pick up the diamond expert, Roland de Soir,’ said Marco as he took out his phone.
Maxi had been about to get showered and leave the hotel to go to his shop when the phone beside the bed rang.
‘We pick you up in twenty minutes from the outside of the hotel.’
‘Where will we be going?’
‘Don’t worry. You’ll be taken care of.’
‘I need to know where it is.’
‘Twenty minutes. Be outside.’ The phone went dead.
Maxi tried ringing Carter but couldn’t get through. He phoned Bowie.
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Go with them and we’ll follow you.’
‘But—’
‘Maxi, Carter is missing. A lot depends on this.’
‘I’ll do my best. He’d do the same for me.’
‘Do you know what you have to do?’
‘I know what Carter told me. It’s a Colombian drug cartel called the Zapata family. I’m working for them to make sure that the diamonds add up to more than a hundred million pounds.’
Maxi showered and got ready to leave.
Bowie called Willis.
‘Marco phoned. They’re picking Maxi up to examine the diamonds. It means the shipment has arrived. We need them followed. We must not lose them.’
‘Carter’s told them where the diamonds are,’ said Willis. ‘He waited for the shipment to arrive. He must have.’
Willis felt a glimmer of hope.
Undercover officers sat in their cars across from the hotel, waiting for Maxi’s pick-up.
Maxi came out looking anxious. His phone rang and he stopped to answer it. Just as he did so, a motorbike drove past the front of the hotel and slowed, and the driver handed Maxi a helmet. In a second Maxi was gone, and the bike was weaving through the London traffic. His phone was thrown beneath tyres as they sped away.
Chapter 74
‘Who do you keep texting?’ Tony asked Marco. Harold was driving. Maxi was sitting in the second row of seats. Laurence and Della were travelling separately in Della’s car. The motorbike was in the back of the van. They were driving on the back roads towards Kent.
‘I’m telling them where to deliver the shipment.’
‘Ring instead, for fuck’s sake.’
‘Who knows about the laboratory, Marco?’ asked Harold.
‘Just me and Manson and the cooks we kept here. They stay for six months and then new come. We have it working sweetly.’
‘Will the cooks work for the new cartel?’ asked Harold.
‘Sure. They work for us.’
‘Why didn’t Manson want to carry on?’ asked Harold. ‘He must have been making good money from it?’
‘He didn’t want to expand, go global. He was thinking too small. He was a small man,’ answered Marco.
‘And Eddie?’
‘He was too scared.’
‘Eddie didn’t want anything to do with drug money,’ said Harold. ‘Never would have. He was against it.’
Tony kept quiet. Maxi stared out of the window, grateful to be ignored.
‘Eddie must have suspected something. He was upset when I saw him,’ said Harold. ‘He must have suspected that his business was being used to import cocaine. I suppose he was bound to find out in the end. Manson couldn’t keep it a secret, not if you were expanding.’
Tony glanced across at Harold and then at Marco.
Marco shrugged. ‘Eddie was going to come in on the deal. I feel sure. Just others got to him first.’
‘Others?’
‘Yes, others. Now let’s leave this,’ said Tony, interrupting.
Marco was staring at Harold’s profile now as Harold drove. Tony was sitting in between them.
‘You were trying to force Eddie into taking on this deal,’ Harold said, ‘weren’t you?’ The van had become super-tense.
Marco shrugged. Tony remained silent but he had begun to fidget.
‘Is that how it was, Tony?’ asked Harold.
‘It wasn’t me who did it! I said to suggest it to him, not kill him.’
Harold drove in silence. He shook his head in disgust. Marco took his gun out and began cleaning it.
In the hire car, Laurence was in a happy mood. He was singing away to himself as he tapped his fingers on the steering wheel and periodically he looked across at Della. She pretended to be sleeping. It was getting difficult to cope with the pain. The sun was overhead, beating in through the car windows onto her face.
‘Don’t worry, Della, we’ll fix that face. A bit of surgery. No problem. I’ll pay for it. I’ll look after you from now on. You’ll be all mine. Of course, it’s going to take me a while to forgive you for going back to your old boyfriend – I’m going to have to be tough on you, I’m afraid. There will be some punishment to be administered. There are always consequences, after all.’
Della was grateful for the cool air when they stopped. She opened her eyes a little to see gates opening to a self-storage company and the Transit van in front of them. Marco had got out to open the gates.
They drove inside and parked in front of a line of storage units. The place was deserted. Laurence opened her door.
‘Get out.’
Della opened her eyes a little more. Laurence reached in and undid her belt. He brushed her face with his shoulder. Della let out a muffled cry as the skin on her cheek folded back.
‘Well, move then and get out.’
Della watched Marco go inside a storage unit and then return, grinning, to the van.
‘Come.’ He ordered someone outside.
Della watched as a face she hadn’t seen for more than fifteen years looked at her and almost lost his footing.
‘Do you know her?’ asked Marco, stopping in his tracks.
Maxi shook his head.
Marco looked at Tony and Harold. They turned to Della. Laurence hissed into her burned face.
‘Do you know one another?’
Della rolled her eyes, shook her head.
Maxi followed Marco into the lockup; Tony followed. The others stood by the doors.
‘I need to sit somewhere. I need a good light,’ said Maxi. ‘This is going to take some time.’
The suitcase of diamonds was compartmentalised; the uncut stones were wrapped individually and the rest were grouped in boxes according to their carat and worth.
Della turned her face from the sun.
‘Can I sit in the shade, in the van?’ she asked Laurence.
‘No.’
‘Yes, she can,’ said Harold and he went into the boot of the van and brought out a first-aid kit.
‘Do your face, Della.’
She took the kit and went to sit in the cool of the van, the door open. The darkness was comforting.
Marco came into the van and took the keys to the motorbike and picked up a sub-machine gun from the back of the van.
He looked at Della and grinned.
‘No ideas.’
She used the mirror on the passenger seat and applied dots of antiseptic and pain-relieving cream. She swabbed her face with a dressing pad while keeping an eye on what was happening in the lockup. Della hadn’t expected it to be someone she knew. Marco was watching every move as Maxi was jotting down his findings. After an hour Maxi got up to stretch his legs. He caught Della’s eye and smiled.
The fact that he was a police officer gave her hope. She didn’t know whether he still was, but he must have been planted. She thought maybe she was being monitored, watched.
‘How much longer?’ Marco asked Maxi. ‘The shipment is being loaded at the docks right now. We need to hurry up.’
‘It’s a difficult process,’ he replied. ‘I have to grade every diamond. We could be here a long time. You were supposed to give me time to do this job.’
‘You just have to tell the Zapata family that these diamonds are worth over a hundred million pounds.’
‘I am not near that figure yet. You need to give me time.’
‘We don’t want to make the Crown Jewels out of them, for fuck’s sake,’ said Tony. Maxi nodded.
An hour later Tony was still pacing around the car park and Laurence called him back.
‘Okay, we’re there. We’re done.’
‘All good?’ asked Tony. Maxi nodded.
‘Okay. We have to go now.’ Tony shut the suitcase and Marco carried it into the van. They relocked the storage and Della went back to sit in the car with Laurence.
Maxi stood waiting by the van.
‘I can call a taxi,’ he said. ‘You don’t need to worry.’
‘Get in,’ said Marco.
‘My job is done. I can send them a written report.’
‘Get in, or I’ll shoot you.’
Before he got into the car Marco made a call to Jo. He made it discreetly so that he wouldn’t be overheard. He didn’t like loose ends. He didn’t like plan Bs.
‘Kill the policeman.’
Chapter 75
Carter slumped down against the wall of the cellar. He dozed in and out of consciousness. Now that he was no longer suspended b
y his wrists, the blood had returned to his shoulders and he felt the bond around his wrists had eased, stretched from the hanging. But the pain in his stomach came in sharp bursts with nausea, with breathlessness. The pain was growing all the time. He moaned out loud. He opened his eyes and saw Jo walking towards him pulling a length of wire, wrapping it around his fist.
‘Time to say goodbye, my friend.’
Carter stayed slumped, groaning in pain. His eyes closed. He waited until Jo leaned across him with the wire and then Carter headbutted him. As Jo fell backwards Carter freed his hand from its bond. He’d been working it loose for hours. The strength in his shoulders wasn’t there, so Carter used his body to push forwards on his knees and he headbutted Jo again, knocking him hard as he tried to scramble back and out of the way. Jo’s forehead split open. Carter crawled after him. Jo picked up a piece of glass from the broken bottles piled in the corner and he lunged forward at Carter, jabbing at his face, missing and scraping the side of Carter’s head. Carter swivelled his body round and kicked him hard, a double-footed punch kick. He sat back, waiting, watching. Jo’s throat opened and blood began spurting. The shard of glass was poking out of his throat. Carter couldn’t have helped him, even if he’d wanted to.
Chapter 76
‘Must be our chemist friends,’ said Laurence. Della opened her eyes enough to see the two men of South American origin. One wore glasses and was slim and slight; the other was taller and younger. They shook hands with Marco. Laurence was watching the proceedings. Tony got out of the van next and shook their hands also. The older man opened up the door to the barn and stepped inside, followed by Tony and Marco while the younger one went back inside the house. Harold was still in the van with Maxi. Della could sense the nervousness in Laurence. He was muttering to himself. Occasionally Della felt his breath on her as he stared at her. She heard someone approaching the car. The back door of the car opened and Harold got in.
‘When is it arriving?’ asked Laurence as Harold made himself comfortable.
‘We’re waiting for a guy named Justino to call. He’s driving the lorry.’
‘Who is he?’
‘He’s someone big in the cartel. He has to be satisfied with everything. They’ve already received half of it in cash.’
