The Cover Up

by Marnie Riches

Satisfied that the toxic reach of the firebomb had remained within the perimeter fence of the builders’ merchants, Sheila ended the call. Made enquiries after Gloria and briefed Lev that his mother was fine and might be discharged the following day, after a night of being under observation.

  Ignoring her home phone that rang and rang with Conky, the police, the fire brigade, various builders’ merchants staff, Frank and the insurance company – all leaving fraught messages – she determined to wash away the horror of the afternoon in a deep foam bath. Over and over, she rehearsed what she planned to say to Bancroft.

  ‘You mess with me, you’re messing with the wrong one,’ she told the television screen that was sunk into the stacked-stone slate of the bathroom wall. The Real Housewives of Beverley Hills was showing on a lesser ITV channel with the sound on mute. Sadly, they had no advice to offer her. ‘I’m going to end you, Nigel.’

  No. That didn’t sound right.

  ‘I’m the Queen of Manchester, you Brummie bastard, and you’ve committed treason.’

  Better.

  By the time she was dressed and climbing into the Roller for her mother’s darts tournament, she was feeling calmer. A cheeky vodka and tonic and a shot from some old Ventolin inhaler that had been left in the medicine cupboard from the last time Amy had visited served both to calm her nerves and ease the congestion on her chest. Confronting Nigel Bancroft could wait for the morning. She wasn’t Paddy, steaming in with his Smith & Wessons blazing if another man so much as looked at him askance. She would take time overnight to cogitate on what had happened and what her next move might be. She needed to put out feelers to check it was, indeed, Bancroft. The enemies of a woman like her were many and varied, after all.

  At the community centre in Chorlton, her mother wasted no time in parading her to the other women on the team.

  ‘Come and meet our Sheila, Doreen!’ she said, dragging some pensioner with a tight perm and matching hatchet face over to inspect her long-lost daughter. ‘She drives a Rolls Royce. What do you think of that?’

  Doreen, swathed in so much nine-carat gold that she stooped, reached out and touched one of the oversized diamond studs in Sheila’s ears with a nicotine-stained finger. ‘Are them cubics?’

  ‘Pardon?’ Sheila limboed away from the woman’s touch.

  ‘Cubic zirconia. Only, my Janet got a pair just like them the other week for her birthday. Argos catalogue, wasn’t it? Gorgeous stuff in there. Her Billy blew his giro on her. They were two carat. Bleeding lovely, they are.’

  Sheila’s mother pulled her darts top over her ample bosom, revealing her team’s logo of a parrot wearing a helmet, clutching a dart in its beak, though Sheila didn’t dare ask what helmet-wearing parrots had to do with darts or a Chorlton community centre or a gaggle of elderly bingo-goers. ‘Two carats in what, precisely?’

  ‘Cubic bleeding zirconia, of course!’

  As the almost surreal argument escalated, Sheila registered a humdinger of a hangover after the explosion, manifesting itself as dizziness and worsening tinnitus. She took a seat, idly observing the bickering women, allowing the warmth and novelty of the place to seep into her stiff muscles; she was successfully anaesthetising herself against the horror of the attack with the laughter and banality of lesser lives. Being away from Conky and the business for an evening was just the ticket.

  Her mother had just thrown a bullseye, causing consternation with the opposing team, when somebody’s elderly husband came in from the fire exit, bringing with him the stale odour of cigarettes. Sheila’s stomach contracted as the man made eye contact with her, marching straight over until his wizened face was inches from hers..

  ‘There’s a feller in the car park wants a word with you,’ he said.

  ‘Me?’

  He nodded. ‘That’s right. Feller in a posh car. Said it was urgent. A matter of life and death, he said.’

  Grabbing her bag that contained her snub-nosed pistol, Sheila tottered outside, gripping the handrail as the descended the steps to the carpark, wondering if death had changed his mind and had opted to pay her a second visit in one day. There, parked next to her Rolls Royce, was a gleaming Mercedes CLS. Its tail lights glowed red, but in the darkness she had no way of discerning who was in the driver’s seat.

  Clutching her gun with her hand concealed inside her bag, fighting her exhaustion, she approached. The passenger door opened and she heard a familiar voice from within. A voice she really did not want to hear. Taut. Fraught. Constricted with fury.

  ‘Get in. I want a word with you.’

  Chapter 22

  Conky

  ‘Batter you? I’m gonna rip your bloody head off and use your neck as a vase, you big Irish bastard!’

  As the fist of the enemy gang-member sped towards his jaw, Conky considered the prospect of flowers in a vase. Coolly grabbed the man’s wrist and twisted it backwards so that it snapped with a brittle cracking sound reminiscent of breaking bamboo.

  ‘They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so I’ll thank you for that,’ he said, pressing his face close to his now-yelping opponent. ‘See, I already tried that with your wee man, Brummie Kevin. And I have to say …’ He looked over and winked at Frank, whose face was contorted with apparent horror. ‘The gullet is a less than ideal receptacle for a nice rose or two. Very narrow.’

  Wrestling his rival combatant to the floor, Conky considered the flowers he’d sent to Sheila only an hour earlier. Had she received them yet? So far, she had ignored every call he’d placed to the home phone, checking she was okay. There was a tightness in his chest at the thought she might be lying in some hospital somewhere, having crashed on the motorway journey home. If only he’d been able to find her damned mobile phone in the wreckage before the authorities had had the opportunity to get their mitts on it.

  How would he break that news to Sheila?

  The fire-fighter hadn’t wanted to let Conky dig through the dripping, charred wreckage of the builders’ merchants. ‘Site’s unsafe, mate! The investigators haven’t examined it yet. Don’t make me get one of the police officers over to deal with you.’

  Tempted to grab him by the scruff of his neck, Conky had desisted, realising the guy had simply been doing his job. He had removed his glasses to reveal his protruding eyes in all their terrifying glory. ‘Catch yourself on, big lad. Some eejit has firebombed this place in an act of sabotage against a poor wee widow. It sickens my pish.’ He had eyeballed him to ensure he knew no backing down had been about to take place. ‘Mrs O’Brien asked me to look for something of sentimental value that she dropped when she passed out. Now, step aside and let me do my job. Then I’ll let you do yours.’

  There was youth and some trepidation in the fireman’s eyes. He couldn’t have been more than late twenties. ‘Ten minutes, then. Watch your step.’

  Raking through the steaming remains with a stick, Conky had not been able to spot the phone. Could it have melted?

  ‘Ah, Mr McFadden. Fancy seeing you here.’

  Conky had frozen, mid-search. He had recognised the smug tones immediately.

  ‘Ellis James. What a surprise!’

  Turning around, the sight of the dumpy detective with his dull blond buzz cut and perpetually greasy-looking coat had made Conky’s heart sink. A grilling would be inevitable.

  ‘In my car please, Mr McFadden. I’d like to take a statement.’

  He had to fob James off; get rid of him so he could have another look for Sheila’s phone. All those decades, he had hankered after her. He’d be damned if he’d lose the love of his life over an incriminating SIM card.

  In the foetid Mondeo, which had reeked of stale chippy dinners, cheesy feet and the funk of unwashed hair, Conky had relayed a tale of a sudden explosion.

  ‘Oh, you know how the wee bastards round here are, Detective James,’ he had said, looking prosaically through the windscreen at the chaotic scene of uniforms, firemen, slightly chargrilled O’Brien’s Builders’ Merchants workers and fire in
vestigators in their black uniforms. Police tape had already been fluttering around the site, holding back the rubber-necking neighbours from the budget tyre-fitters next door and the neighbouring estate.

  ‘Do I?’ Ellis James narrowed his eyes at Conky. ‘How do I know this wasn’t some insurance scam?’

  ‘Sure, that’s for the insurance guys and the fire investigators to ascertain,’ Conky had said, sighing. ‘Forensics. The indisputable purity of science. I think you’ll find my version of events a fair and accurate representation of what’s gone on.’ Ellis James had had diddly shit on them. Of that, he had been certain. ‘There are five witnesses will tell you the same. We were in the office one minute. A firebomb came through the window and the next thing … boom! Nothing more to add. And I’d offer you a coffee but the machine’s melted, so it has.’ He had forced himself to smile amiably.

  ‘My friend Ruth Darley and I had a very interesting trip out the other evening.’ James’s eyes had narrowed.

  ‘Oh.’ Conky had glanced pointedly at his watch. Had been careful not to allow any concern to register on his face. ‘And? Did she let you cop a feel?’

  Ellis James’s mouth had twisted into a sneer. ‘We had a tip-off about Maureen Kaplan’s illicit stash of accounts.’

  Don’t react. Don’t raise so much as an eyebrow. Genghis Khan would give him the cold face. Channel Genghis. ‘Illicit? Surely not! I’ll bet you didn’t find anything interesting, did you, detective? Go on! You can tell me!’

  That James’s sneer sagged into a scowl told Conky everything he needed to know. The hapless detective and his ballbreaker of an HMRC squeeze had been fed good information too late, yet again. Maureen was circumspect and experienced – no match for those low-level chumps.

  ‘I’m sorry your date turned out to be a disappointment,’ he had said, nudging James and grinning. ‘Next time, eh? Now if you don’t mind …’

  Finally, he had watched with a degree of levity as Ellis James had driven away in that shitty cesspit of a car. Time to look anew for Sheila’s phone. Except, the fire investigator had been standing close to the spot where Sheila had been sprawled, unconscious. Frowning, he had been examining a black, flat lozenge shape in his hand. How had Conky missed it? Damn his shitty eyesight to hell!

  Too late to stem the tidal flow of crap that would surely now come the O’Briens’ way.

  Several hours later, long after the light had failed and Conky had spent an age reporting the sabotage to the insurers from the non-comfort of the nearest dingy council estate pub, when his phone had started to ring, he had answered hastily, without checking the screen. Praying it would be Sheila.

  ‘Conks! You’ve got to come quick!’ Frank on the other end. His voice had been stringy and high-pitched. The sound of men shouting and crashing in the background. Smashing glass.

  ‘What in God’s name is going on there?’

  Frank had yelped in answer and hung up.

  Striding out to his car, Conky had guessed this was Bancroft, following up an almighty right hook with a series of jabs below the belt.

  Two Range Rovers had been parked outside an otherwise silent M1 House. No sign of the bouncers so early in the evening. Frank’s wheels had to have been around the back. Conky had calculated how many of Bancroft’s lackeys might have rocked up, ready for a fight in two seven-seater cars. Fourteen? Jesus. Where’s Degsy, Lev and Pulp Friction when you need them? Ignoring the aches in his legs, he had reached into the secret compartment beneath the glovebox of his car. Empty. What the hell had he done with his SIG Sauer?

  Plunging his hand inside his coat, patting the pocket and looking up quizzically at the M1 House neon sign above the door to the club, he had felt his pulse quicken. Nothing. Not in his waistband. Not on his person. He had to have dropped the fecking thing in amongst the firebomb fallout.

  No sign yet of Lev or Degsy, though he had left messages for them. Should he go in solo? It could be certain death. But leave that hapless twat Frank to fend for himself? No way. That was not how the Loss Adjuster rolled.

  Steeling himself to walk in there alone, he had entered the club and happened upon some ten men. They had been smashing the hell out of the beer fridges behind the main bar with crowbars. The cold air, not yet warmed by the bodies of dancing young revellers, had tasted of fear and violence; had reeked of spilled alcohol. Not good. One of them – the black guy with the dreads who had accompanied Bancroft to Salford Quays – had had a hand around Frank’s neck, leaning the poor bastard backwards over the bar, screaming something barely intelligible into his terror-stricken face.

  ‘Get your hands off him!’ Conky had grabbed a stool from one of the seating areas that surrounded the empty expanse of the dance floor. His speech had been thick and clumsy with adrenalin and aggression.

  Bancroft’s man had released his grip on Frank and had sprinted towards Conky, wielding a knife. ‘This is a message from Bancroft,’ he had yelled, jabbing at Conky. ‘Manchester is the new Birmingham. Surrender or—’

  ‘An empty vessel makes the most noise, so it does. Shut your bake, dickhead!’ Bancroft’s guy had taken a blow to the arm from the base of the stool, knocking the knife across the polished concrete of the club’s floor. A swift blow to his head with another swing of the stool and he had been out cold.

  Panting, feeling the skin on his face stinging and uncomfortably hot, Conky had just had enough respite to register two of the other attackers rounding on him with their crowbars to give him a shot at grabbing the dreadlocked guy’s knife. There it had been, glinting on the ground beneath the club’s spotlights like treasure waiting to be found. Conky had abandoned the stool, flinging it in the approaching aggressors’ path. Had propelled himself towards the knife. Gasping as his fingers closed around it. Unfit bastard. You should cut down on the sneaky burgers when Sheila isn’t looking. You’re meant to be a professional. Had brandished it at the men, who had goaded him with threats of how they had been just waiting to batter his head to a pulp.

  But Conky, like the seasoned predator he was, had smelled the anxiety oozing from their every pore. He knew at that point that both of them had seen Brummie Kev’s severed head.

  Removing his Ray-Bans with his left gloved hand, sliding them into his pocket, he had drawn himself up to his full height. One of the men had faltered; had taken a half-step backwards. Conky had wrenched the crowbar from his uncertain grip and had brought the weight of it crashing down onto the man’s shoulder, knocking him to his knees.

  Two down. Eight to go.

  With the knife in his right hand, he had lunged for the other prick. But Conky had found himself stunned by a swing from another crowbar to his ear. The pain had been intense, accompanied by a high-pitched squeak as something within the delicate bone structure of his middle ear had failed catastrophically.

  Suddenly, the bloodythirsty Brummie had cast aside his weapon with a clatter. Had put his fists up like some excitable sparring newbie in a boxing ring for the first time.

  ‘You squaring up to me, big lad?’ Conky had said, trying his damnedest to ignore the squealing in his ear. ‘Are you planning to batter me?’

  ‘Batter you? I’m gonna rip your bloody head off and use your neck as a vase, you big Irish bastard!’

  And so, despite reminding the wee shite of how Brummie Kev had recklessly lost his head and despite snapping his wrist into the bargain, Conky had been surprised by his opponent falling upon him in an incensed frenzy of spittle, sweat and testosterone. A younger man. A hungrier man. Focused. Raining punch after punch down on his head with his good hand, so that Conky’s careful hair arrangement was sent scudding across the dance floor, along with his pride.

  The agony in his ear raged on and Conky’s vision begun to blur – he was barely registering Frank’s feeble efforts to come to his aid, clutching a bottle of Newcastle Brown as a makeshift bludgeon. Within moments, the battle became nothing more than an execution waiting to happen, with odds that Conky recognised to be on the terminal sid
e of badly stacked against them.

  Now, the Brummie thug’s fist made contact with Conky’s jaw anew, sending his head backwards onto the unyielding ground. Bancroft’s side had triumph within reach. How was it that such a bad day could take a turn for the even worse? And yet, there was apparently more to come, as M1 House shook with the deafening sound of a gunshot fired …

  Chapter 23

  Sheila

  ‘You?!’ Sheila said, peering at the man in the driver’s seat of the Mercedes in disbelief. Her enemy.

  She gripped the open passenger door, steadying herself, though the charms on her Tiffany bracelet betrayed her as they jingle-jangled in time with her thudding heart. No intention of getting in. ‘You firebombed me, you bastard?! But I didn’t die, so now, you’ve come to finish the job? Is that it?’

  The car park was deserted. If she screamed now, she doubted the rabble inside the community centre would hear her above their raucous laughter and arguments over who had scored double top and who was a lying cheat.

  She locked eyes with her opposite number in the dark and damp of that chill Mancunian evening. All after-effects of the bomb now washed away in a wave of adrenalin.

  ‘Firebomb? What are you on about?’ Tariq Khan asked, a bemused expression on his handsome face.

  ‘And some creepy picture of my kids, delivered to my door in a sodding envelope by a courier. Trying to kill me wasn’t enough so now you’re trying to spook me and all, are you?’

  ‘No! Look …’ He glanced around the car park, one hand on the steering wheel, one on his lap. Reached over and patted the passenger seat. ‘Get in. Please. We need to talk. I’m not armed, I swear. I’m here about my dad.’ Held his hands up and offered a weak smile as corroborating evidence.

  Sheila knew she had a decision to make. ‘Why should I trust you, of all people?’

  The smile slid from Tariq’s face, to be replaced by a scowl. His shoulders seemed to rise an inch. Anger licked like flames along the silky-smooth edges of his cultured, Oxford-graduate’s speech. ‘Listen. I know you’ve kidnapped my dad. Your men tried and failed to drag him off a car-wash forecourt, didn’t they? Well, now they’ve succeeded. By rights, I should have just steamed in on you, guns blazing. But I thought we could talk and sort this, like human beings. Grown-ups.’ The ferocity in his tone wavered. ‘My dad’s a sick man.’ He blinked hard, the Adam’s apple in his neck bobbing up and down.