Exposed

by Roberta Kray

  The story was sensational – in every sense of the word. He couldn’t have asked for more if he’d made it up himself. Jimmy drummed his fingers on the wheel as he waited at traffic lights. So what was Tom Chase’s real name? Jack Minter, perhaps, although it was more than likely that was fake as well. He didn’t relish the thought of another three hours down Somerset House but it might come to that if Eden didn’t – or couldn’t – enlighten him. But at least he had leverage on her now. If she refused to speak it would look like she was defending her husband’s despicable actions.

  It was a bugger that she’d disappeared. If the worst came to the worst, he could get Maurie to do the prison run again but that would mean waiting until Thursday. He shifted in his seat, scratched his neck, swore softly under his breath. He wasn’t sleeping properly and his eyes felt sore; every time his head hit the pillow the story started spinning round. He needed the missing pieces. He needed Eden Chase.

  Even as Jimmy approached the three tall concrete towers of the Mansfield estate, he could see the grey smoke rising into the air. It was the last place he wanted to be – a bloody jungle – and he intended to get in and out as fast as he could. Compared to the disturbances taking place in other parts of London, this was small-scale, minor, but there was always a chance things could escalate. What he didn’t want was to be caught in the middle of a riot. Some reporters, the more intrepid variety, might relish the prospect, but he wasn’t one of them.

  He parked the car down a side street, well away from the vandals. His old Cortina might be a heap of scrap but at least it still had four wheels on it. As he entered the estate, the acrid smell of burning rubber floated on the air. Jimmy walked along the main path, following his nose. The towers loomed over him, gloomy and ominous, high-rise prisons for the poor and the hopeless. There was nothing to recommend the place. The estate was a shithole, a slum in the sky.

  Jimmy scanned the landscape, alert to any signs of fresh trouble. A couple of cars stood smouldering in the central square. The ground was littered with debris, bits of wood, old pipe, and broken glass that crunched under his feet. Not a cop in sight. Not many residents either. There was the sense of something simmering, the lull that comes before the storm.

  He skirted around the cars and headed for Haslow House. His intention was to find Mandy Lee, the woman who ran the residents’ association, and get her views on what was happening and why. Of course everyone knew why – it hardly took a genius to work it out – but he needed someone to spell out the obvious in black and white. A few pithy quotes and he’d be on his way.

  Jimmy scowled as he strode towards the door, resenting the time he was wasting when he could be trying to track down Eden Chase. He was looking forward to the moment they came face to face again, when he could show her the birth certificate of a long-dead child and shock her out of her silence. No one could refuse to comment when presented with evidence like that. She was about to find out the truth and it wouldn’t be pleasant. Well, not for her at least. For him, it could be the biggest break of his career.

  Jimmy was still thinking about this as he approached the entrance to the tower block. He was only a few yards from the door when it happened. He sensed rather than saw the initial movement above him, a change, a shifting in the atmosphere, but by the time his instincts told him to look up it was already too late. He had only a fleeting impression of something falling, something gathering speed, before the air was knocked out of his lungs and he hit the ground like a sack of spuds. The last thing he remembered was the dull grey colour of the concrete before everything went black.

  50

  Max drove into the far corner of the car park of the Fox, away from lights and prying eyes. He turned the motor around so he was facing the exit and then switched off the engine. He checked his watch – ten minutes to six – and settled back to wait. From here he could see the side door of the pub, used only by the staff. A pile of crates stood to one side, neatly stacked with empty bottles. It was in that very spot that Joe Quinn had been battered to death twelve years ago, his head caved in by a baseball bat.

  Max stared over. Had Terry Street been responsible for Quinn’s murder? If he was guilty, he clearly didn’t have any qualms about returning to the scene of the crime. He was here every day; he’d even bought the damn place. It was hardly the action of a man with a guilty conscience – but then maybe Terry didn’t have a conscience at all.

  It was another ten minutes before the door opened. Big Vinnie Keane stepped out and looked around the car park. Max flashed his lights. Vinnie gave a nod and retreated back inside. Thirty seconds later he reappeared, followed by Terry. The two of them walked across the forecourt, side by side, only separating when they reached the car. Vinnie went round the back and casually leaned against the wall. Terry climbed into the passenger seat.

  ‘Max,’ he said. ‘How are you doing, mate?’

  ‘Surviving, thanks. You?’

  Terry shrugged. ‘Getting by.’ He reached into his pocket and took out an opaque plastic bag, which he passed over to Max. ‘This do you?’

  Max switched on the overhead light and pulled out the gun. It was a small black semi-automatic Luger. ‘Anything I need to know?’

  ‘Cleaned, oiled, loaded and in excellent condition. Only one careful owner.’

  Max examined the revolver, keeping it low, out of sight of anyone who might be passing on the road. Then he nodded towards the glove compartment. ‘It’s in there.’

  Terry opened the compartment, took out the envelope and slipped it into the inside pocket of his jacket. ‘Ta.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to count it?’

  ‘I trust you, Max.’ Terry glanced towards the revolver. ‘You should be careful.’

  ‘I know how to handle a gun.’

  ‘I wasn’t talking about the gun.’

  Max gave a shrug.

  Terry stared at him for a while and then gave a nod. ‘I’ll see you around.’

  Max watched as Terry and Vinnie walked back to the pub. He put the gun in his pocket, started the engine and drove out on to Station Road. At the traffic lights he turned right and went up the high street. When he’d gone past Connolly’s he turned right again and began to drive up and down the side roads looking for somewhere to park. Eventually he found a place in Violet Road.

  Max pulled in and cut the engine. The road was quiet, residential, a row of two-up, two-down terraces. He leaned back against the seat and gazed out into the darkness. There was an ache in his bones, an exhaustion he couldn’t shake off. He wanted to close his eyes and go to sleep. He wanted everything to be over.

  As he got out of the car, a black cat with sleek fur and shining green eyes ran across his path into one of the small front gardens. He couldn’t remember if that was supposed to be lucky or unlucky. Terry would say you made your own luck in this world, but Max wasn’t so sure. For him the fates were capricious creatures, distributing good and bad in a fashion so random it made no sense at all. You got what you were given, deserved or not.

  Max noticed Eden’s Audi as he made his way back to the high street. It was parked under a street lamp and the long, deep scratch along the passenger side glittered silver against the darkness of the bodywork. He wasn’t proud of having done that. It had been one of those petty, spiteful acts, a lashing out, a spur of the moment thing.

  As he walked on, Max rolled her name around his mouth. Eden. He refused to think of her as a real, breathing, sentient being. For him, she was no more than a means to an end. He had saved her life in order to take it. He smiled at the madness of it all. His fingers closed around the gun, the cool hard metal. There was always a time of reckoning and for Tom Chase it was fast approaching.

  51

  Eden gazed across the table, shocked at the state of Tammy and the story of what had happened to her on Friday. The girl’s face was battered and bruised, one eye so swollen it wouldn’t open properly. She had a cowed, frightened look, but there was a hint of defiance in her expression
too. She was hitting back at Banner the only way she could – by telling the truth.

  It was just over an hour since Tammy had called Caitlin, saying she had to talk to Eden urgently. Caitlin had given her the Kellston number – there was no need for secrecy now that Eden was moving out – and the three of them had met up at the flat.

  ‘You should report the bastard,’ Caitlin said. ‘You can’t let him get away with it.’

  Tammy shook her head. ‘And have him tell everyone I’m a grass? He would, you know. He’d make sure the entire bloody neighbourhood knew about it. And I’ve got Mia to think about. What if he calls the Social?’

  ‘He won’t.’

  ‘He might. He’s a shit. He does whatever he likes.’

  Eden would probably have had less sympathy for Tammy if it hadn’t been for what she’d learned from Tom that morning. Now the spying hardly seemed to matter; it was just one more sordid detail in the great, dirty scheme of things. She still hadn’t got her head round it all. She felt like she’d been pushed off the edge of a cliff and was still falling, falling, waiting for the moment when she hit the ground and shattered into a thousand pieces.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Tammy said for the umpteenth time. ‘Honest, I am. I shouldn’t have done it. I’m really sorry.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Eden replied, because it didn’t any more. She didn’t give a damn what Tammy may have passed on to DI Vic Banner. ‘But thanks for telling me. It can’t have been easy.’

  Tammy’s hands did a flustered dance on the table, her fingers twisting round each other, linking and unlinking. ‘There’s something else you should know: Pete’s been working for Banner too.’

  ‘Your brother?’

  ‘He’s not my brother. That was just… I never met him before all this.’

  ‘Oh,’ Eden said, wondering if she was, possibly, the most gullible person in the world.

  Tammy, who was unaware of Tom’s revelations, gave Eden a nervous glance as if wondering why she was being so reasonable. She shrank back a little, perhaps suspecting that some form of retribution would eventually be coming her way. ‘You must be mad at me.’

  Eden shrugged. ‘I didn’t tell you anything important. Well, nothing Banner wouldn’t have found out about in time.’

  ‘The stuff about Pat Lynch was true, though. Honest to God. I wasn’t making it up. That guy really is crazy. Your old man needed to get off the wing. He wasn’t safe there.’

  Eden gave a thin smile. Her old man. Except he wasn’t. Tom was someone else’s husband. Poor Jackie had a shock coming her way. She wondered who’d break the bad news to her. The police, probably, as it involved a crime. There would be a knock on her door, tomorrow or the day after, and Jackie would answer it and her life would be torn apart. She must have married again after all these years, had a family, put the past behind her. But the past wasn’t sleeping peacefully. Like Lazarus, Larry Hewitt had risen from the dead.

  Tammy put her head in her hands. ‘Banner’s going to kill me if he finds out I told you.’

  ‘Looks like he’s already tried,’ Caitlin said. ‘Why don’t you get out of London for a while, lay low until the trial is over? If you’re not around he can’t cause you any grief.’

  ‘And go where? I’ve got nowhere to go.’

  ‘I might be able to help you there.’

  ‘How?’

  But before Caitlin got the chance to answer, the doorbell rang. Eden stood up, guessing who it was even as she headed for the landing. There were only a few people who knew where she was staying and two of them were in the living room. She walked downstairs, opened the door and came face to face with Max Tamer again. Although she knew she should be afraid, she felt nothing as she stood aside and waved him in.

  ‘You’d better come up.’

  Tamer gave a nod and started up the stairs. As Eden followed him, she wondered why she was so calm. Or maybe it wasn’t calmness, more a sort of paralysis, as if she had gone beyond feeling anything. The truth about Tom had drained all the emotion from her. She had a numbness in the centre of her heart, an odd hazy mist swirling around in her head.

  Max Tamer walked into the living room and stopped abruptly. ‘Oh,’ he said, turning towards her. ‘I didn’t realise you had company.’

  Eden looked over at Caitlin. ‘Why don’t you and Tammy go to the caff for half an hour? We won’t be long. I’ll meet you down there.’

  ‘If I’m interrupting,’ Tamer said, ‘I can come back later.’

  Eden shook her head, wanting to get it over and done with. ‘There’s no need.’

  Caitlin stared at Tamer for a few seconds before shifting her attention to Eden. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘If you don’t mind,’ Eden said. ‘We just need a quick chat.’ It only occurred to her as the two women were leaving that it might have been smarter for her to take Tamer somewhere more public rather than remaining with him in the flat. But at the same time she didn’t really care.

  Max Tamer’s face was tight and drawn. His gaze skittered around the room before coming to rest on Eden again. He said nothing until the front door had shut and he knew they were alone. ‘So, did you see him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And?’

  Eden folded her arms across her chest. ‘And he says he never met Ann-Marie. I don’t just mean in London, but in Budapest too. He doesn’t even know what she looks like.’

  Tamer’s face twisted. ‘Do you believe him?’

  ‘What does it matter what I believe? I’m telling you what he said. You wanted me to ask him about Ann-Marie and that’s what I did.’

  Tamer reached into the inside pocket of his overcoat and removed his wallet. He slid out a photograph and held it out to her. ‘This is my wife. This is Ann-Marie in Budapest.’

  Eden gave a slight jump as she took the black and white picture from his hand. The photo was identical to the one she’d found at the studio, the one of the couple sitting outside a bar.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘Have you seen it before?’

  ‘Yes. There were some photos in Tom’s studio and —’

  ‘I knew it,’ Tamer hissed.

  Eden shook her head and passed the picture back to him. ‘It doesn’t mean what you think it does. The photo I saw probably belonged to Jack Minter, not Tom.’ She sighed, knowing she had a lot of explaining to do. ‘You’d better sit down. This is going to take a while. In fact, I need a drink. Hang on, I won’t be a minute.’

  She went through to the kitchen and fetched the bottle of brandy Caitlin had brought with her, along with two glasses. Until now, she’d resisted the temptation to drown her sorrows in alcohol, but she couldn’t face repeating Tom’s secrets without some Dutch courage. She sat down in the armchair – he was on the sofa – put the glasses on the coffee table and unscrewed the lid of the bottle.

  ‘Not for me,’ he said quickly, as if accepting a drink was like collaborating with the enemy. Or maybe he just wanted to keep a clear head.

  Eden poured herself a large one. ‘Suit yourself.’

  ‘Your husband’s a liar,’ he said.

  ‘Of course he is.’

  Tamer, who had obviously been expecting a quite different response, gazed at her suspiciously. His lips straightened into a thin line. ‘What are you up to? Don’t play games with me or —’

  ‘No one’s playing games.’ Eden took a large gulp of brandy, giving the booze time to warm her throat before she continued. She was wondering where to start: the lies, the theft, the bigamy? ‘Well, it’s all going to come out soon enough so you may as well hear it from me.’ She hesitated, took a deep breath and began to tell the story.

  Eden did the best she could, occasionally stumbling over words, stopping and starting, trying to get everything clear in order to shed light on the darkness of Larry Hewitt’s terrible deception. By the time she’d finished she’d got through two glasses of brandy and was pouring out her third. ‘So you see,’ she said finally, ‘he’s only ever pretended to be To
m Chase. He wasn’t the man your wife knew. He was never her boyfriend. He’s just someone who saw an opportunity and grabbed it. He’s a coward and a schemer and a sad excuse for a human being.’

  Tamer rose to his feet and strode over to the window. ‘None of this proves anything – other than the fact your husband’s a compulsive liar.’

  ‘You’ve not been listening properly. He’s not my husband.’

  ‘You can’t believe anything that comes out of his mouth.’

  ‘True,’ she said, ‘but I still don’t think he’s the man you’ve been looking for. That Tom Chase is buried in Budapest. And God knows what his real name was. Jack Minter? I doubt it. That was probably a false name too.’ Eden gave a hollow laugh. ‘Larry Hewitt had no idea what he was getting himself into. He thought he was being clever by taking on a dead man’s identity, but all he was doing was storing up a heap of trouble for himself.’