NEARLY DEAD: the prequel to The Child Taker (Detective Alec Ramsay Series Book 0)

by Conrad Jones

  They walked on quickly and climbed up the stairs.

  ‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ a PO said.

  ‘Is he one of the Karpovs?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘There’s no fooling you is there, McGee?’ one of them answered, sarcastically.

  ‘How many of them are there in here?’

  ‘There’s four of them on the wing and another half a dozen across the other wings. If I had it my way, I’d deport the bastards. This place is like the Hilton compared to a Russian gulag. They’re trouble. You’ll need to watch your back.’

  ‘That’s the impression that I’m getting too,’ Charlie joked, dryly. ‘There’s nothing like a warm welcome, and that was absolutely nothing like a warm welcome!’

  They reached the top tier and the din from below lessened a little. The inmates on the third floor knew better than to join in with the abuse. They were rapists and paedophiles and sexual deviants of all descriptions. Their offences made them less than human in the prison ecosystem. Attracting attention wasn’t advisable. They tiptoed around trying to be as invisible as possible. None of them were about to hurl abuse at Charlie McGee. He scanned the landing and looked at the faces of the men who had come to take a look. They were all unfamiliar except for one.

  Jack Howarth made eye contact but showed no signs of recognition. He didn’t want anyone in the prison to know that he had run errands for Charlie. AJ and his crew already knew and that was bad enough. Making allies with the hierarchy meant making enemies elsewhere. On B Wing, Jack was just another nonce and he wanted to keep it that way, although something told him that it wouldn’t be that simple. Charlie would come asking for his packets to control that screw, Clough and when he did, he would have to tell him that AJ took them from him. That would set AJ off and officer Clough already had it in for him, all he needed now was a lunatic like Charlie on his case too. Things were going to turn nasty, quickly and there was nowhere to run.

  chapter 25

  Del Makin waited at the bus stop, watching the taxi rank across the street. It was pouring down and shoppers scurried along beneath a rainbow of umbrellas. Office workers and the city’s retail employees moved quickly through the crowds with a practised expertise. A double-decker pulled up and the doors hissed open. Commuters jostled onto the bus, leaving Del alone. The driver looked at him to see if he was going to climb aboard but Del was busy watching. Watching and waiting.

  Black cabs pulled into the rank opposite and picked up their fares from the front of a queue that stretched along the pavement and around the corner. It never seemed to diminish when it was raining. A taxi left with a customer and another customer joined the queue. He waited patiently. Hours went by and the rain stopped. The sun went down. All the people had gone home and the line of black cabs grew longer than the queue of customers. Then he saw the taxi that he wanted.

  He pulled up his hood, crossed the road, and lingered near the back of the queue. He counted how many customers there were and how many taxis were in front of the one that he wanted, when they matched, he joined the queue. The customers shuffled forward as each cab left, leaving a wake of spray behind them. The stink of diesel tainted the air and oil floated on the rainwater puddles; the colours like the iridescent hues of a pigeon’s neck. Someone walked past eating chips from a white paper parcel, the aroma made him feel hungry. The penultimate cab trundled away and he stepped towards the one that he wanted. He opened the door and climbed it. The heaters were on full blast and the windows were steamed up.

  ‘Where to, mate?’ the Asian driver asked, a hint of scouse in his accent.

  ‘Calderstones Park, please,’ Del said, chirpily. ‘The entrance on the Woolton side will do fine.’

  ‘I know it,’ the driver said, indicating and pulling into the traffic cautiously. ‘Nice part of town. Do you live there?’

  ‘No. Just visiting friends.’ Del put his head back onto the seat and closed his eyes. The driver got the hint that he wasn’t much of a talker and wanted to chill out. He slid the glass window closed, muffling the noise from the city streets. The traffic was stop-start through the city centre but thinned out as they drove away towards the outskirts. As they turned off onto Menlove Avenue, Del took a sawn-off shotgun from his jacket. He moved to the seat behind the driver and tapped on the window with it, holding it up so that the driver could see it in the rear-view mirror. ‘Pull over nice and slowly and don’t do anything stupid unless you want to see your brains all over the windscreen.

  ‘My money is under the seat, mate. I don’t want any troubles,’ the driver rambled as he brought the vehicle to a stop. The stretch of road was dark and unlit for a few hundred yards. ‘Take my money and leave me alone.’

  ‘Shut up,’ Del said, opening the window between them. He pushed the barrels hard into the back of his head. ‘I don’t want your fucking money!’

  ‘What do you want?’ the driver said, his eyes squeezed tightly closed.

  ‘You gave a statement to the police outside of the Paradise club in town. Any day now, you will be asked to go to the police station about the shooting,’ he said, pressing the gun harder still. ‘You should have kept your big nose out of it and your big mouth shut but you didn’t!’

  ‘I’m very sorry for that. I didn’t think.’

  ‘Too late to retract now. You will be asked to give a formal statement and to identify the shooter in an identity parade, understand me?’

  The driver opened his eyes and looked at him in the mirror. Recognition twinkled in them.

  ‘I know you know,’ he said, nodding.

  ‘You don’t fucking know me and you certainly won’t recognise me in the line-up and if you decide that you do recognise me then someone will get into your cab one night and blow you fucking head off. Do you understand me?’

  ‘I’ve never seen you before in my life,’ the driver said, swallowing hard. ‘I won’t go. I won’t tell them anything.’

  ‘Listen to me,’ Del said, calmly. ‘I’m only going to say this once so listen hard. You will go to the police station and you will do the line-up but you will not identify me. You will identify someone else, understand?’

  ‘Perfectly.’

  ‘Good man,’ Del said. He passed a crumpled ten pound note through the window. ‘Keep the change,’ he said, sliding the shotgun into his jacket. He opened the door and climbed out, jogging into the darkness of the park. He was gone within seconds.

  chapter 26

  Alec pulled up in his driveway and his heart sank a little when he saw it in darkness yet again. The three-storey house looked bleak silhouetted against the light of a half-moon. Its gardens were spotted with mature trees and bushes, which were different shades of black in the darkness. Gail had been working late more and more and her social life was hectic and rarely included him. He had broached the subject twelve months earlier and she launched a broadside at him that he would never forget as long as he lived. She told him in no uncertain terms that for fifteen years she had built her own life around her because he was hardly ever in it. She pointed out that his hours as a senior detective were unsustainable for any marriage to survive and yet she had remained with him all that time when most women would have been gone. He was shocked when she told him the number of times that she had nearly left him because of the loneliness. He couldn’t believe that she had felt lonely for most of their marriage. She was married and yet alone. Her evenings were spent watching the clock, trying to keep food warm without ruining it. Invariably, when he did get home he would be so exhausted that he would fall asleep in front of the television and she would cover him up with a quilt. She spent more nights alone in their bed than most single women did. Her tirade went on for twenty minutes and at the end of it she burst into tears. She told him that she still loved him but the only way the marriage had survived was because she had built a life of her own. Alec had been upset by what she said, not because he thought she was wrong but because he knew that she was right. He had spent most of his life at work yet e
xpected her to be home and happy when he eventually arrived there. It was a selfish attitude to have, one that had caused the high divorce rate in the police force. He had been racked with guilt ever since and now didn’t say a word about her absence. She rarely told him where she had been and he rarely asked. It didn’t matter. As she long as she was happy, that was what counted.

  Alec turned the engine off and climbed out of the Shogun. He closed the door; the indicator lights flashed twice and then he walked towards the house. A movement to his left caught his eye. He stopped and turned around. A hooded figure emerged from the bushes, his gun glinted in the dim moonlight. Alec thought about running but didn’t think he would make it far. There was too much distance between him and the gunman to try to disarm him.

  ‘We believe that you have surveillance tapes that might incriminate several of our mutual acquaintances,’ the man said, his accent local.

  ‘What tapes would they be?’ Alec asked, studying the man’s demeanour. He was ice cold, no nerves at all. This was a pro. ‘There are a lot of surveillance tapes in my world.’

  ‘Not that incriminate the Karpovs there aren’t.’

  ‘Ah, those tapes,’ Alec said, nodding. ‘What about them?’

  ‘I would think you’ve got teams of detectives ploughing through hours and hours of mundane shite, looking for something on the Karpovs haven’t you?’

  ‘That’s about the size of it,’ Alec agreed. Despite the gun, he didn’t feel threatened. ‘What is it to you?’

  ‘A friend of mine asked me to give you a message.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘He said look for anything that was recorded in the second week of February this year. Especially over the weekend. It will have been filmed in London.’

  ‘How would your friend know what is on the tapes?’

  ‘He doesn’t.’

  ‘I’m not following you.’

  ‘He doesn’t know what is on the tapes but he was there on the trip to London.’ The man paused. A rustling in the bushes made him jumpy. ‘He was in London that weekend and so were the Karpovs. It might be just what you’re looking for.’ The man backed away slowly. He glanced behind him before ducking into the bushes and scampering away.

  ‘Tell your friend that I said thank you,’ Alec muttered to no one. He waited until he could no longer hear the man’s footsteps. When he was sure that he was gone, he took out his phone and called Jo. The information could save hundreds of man hours and produce a conviction. It rang a couple of times as he put the key in the door. He stepped inside and closed it behind him. Jo answered as he switched on the lights. ‘Hello.’

  ‘I was just about to call you,’ Jo said, excitedly. ‘Uniform have arrested Derek Makin outside his house. They’re bringing him in now.’

  ‘I’m on my way,’ Alec said, turning the lights off again. He opened the door and stepped outside.

  ‘What did you call me for?’ Jo asked.

  ‘I’ll tell you on the way in,’ Alec said, locking the front door. He looked back at the house in darkness and thought that it hadn’t felt like a home for a long time.

  chapter 27

  Del Makin was sitting in the cells after being processed and arrested for the attempted murder of Charlie McGee. He hadn’t tried to put up a struggle when they came for him and he had made sure that the girls were at their nana’s house so that they didn’t have to watch him being taken away in handcuffs. Once he found out that McGee had survived, he knew that it was only a matter of time before they came for him. His wife, Lucy had agreed with the plan. Unlike some cocaine-dealer’s wives, Lucy Makin knew every move that Del made. They were partners. He bought one kilo every week on a Thursday and by Sunday morning, the lot was gone and Del was fifty-grand richer. They never sold to anyone outside of the circle, absolutely never and no matter how big the demand, they never bought more than one kilo a week. They never cut their product and they never used their product themselves.

  Del’s business had made them millionaires but they portrayed their lives as just comfortable. Lucy worked to make their situation look normal and realistic and their two beautiful daughters went to a good school but not the best one. They didn’t flaunt their wealth. Lucy was smart. When Del came home one day with a blinged-up Range Rover she made him take it straight back and made him swap it for a Lexus.

  ‘You might as well have a tattoo on your forehead saying I sell cocaine!’

  He listened to Lucy. It was her influence and support that had got him over his encounter with Charlie McGee at the abattoir two years earlier. He had arrived home that night a bloody mess and a nervous wreck. It took him nearly an hour to stop crying enough to be able to tell Lucy what had happened, while she cleaned the blood from his cuts and bruises. The injuries were superficial but the video of the Wicks brothers being minced was on replay in his mind and he couldn’t erase it. He was adamant that he was getting out of the business. Lucy had remained calm all the way through as he recounted the episode. His hands were shaking when he sipped his whisky from a crystal glass, his lips still swollen. When he told her that McGee had threatened to hurt their daughters an extraordinary thing happened. She slapped his face, once and very hard and then stood up in front of him, legs apart, hands on hips. Her long auburn hair hung over one shoulder nestling at her breast. There was a sparkle in her green eyes.

  Del had been open mouthed in shock, not quite sure what he had done wrong but aware that she wasn’t happy about something. She had told him to get a grip. Get a grip of yourself straightaway! Her mind worked at warp speed to protect her family. She loved Del but he needed to toughen up to survive.

  ‘I’m getting out, Lucy,’ he whined. ‘It’s getting too dangerous. We have to think about the girls.’

  ‘Get a grip, Derek!’ she snapped. Her eyes were narrowed, her face stone. ‘Do you think this man will let you just stop and walk away after what you have seen?’ Del hadn’t thought of that. ‘Of course, he won’t.’ A thought occurred to her. ‘Why did he kill the Wicks brothers?’

  ‘I’m not one hundred percent sure but I think they were becoming too big for their boots,’ Del had mused. ‘I had heard rumblings that they were spreading themselves thin and moving into areas that belonged to some dangerous people.’

  ‘Greed, Del. That’s how they all get caught in the end. Greed.’ She had dabbed at the cut above his eye. ‘You’re not a greedy man, Derek Makin and we will not make the same mistakes as they did. We need to stay calm and look at the options.’

  ‘I still think we should get out and move away, Lucy.’

  ‘And go where?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘And do what?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘That’s because you’re not thinking straight. You’ve had a nasty shock. We need to think this through and stay calm.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘This McGee character wants to keep supplying us on a regular business just like before, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And you won’t have to deal with him directly?’

  ‘No. I am to arrange the exchange on a Wednesday night each week with a guy called Matt.’

  ‘Then I don’t see an immediate threat.’ She had walked to the window and looked out at the landscaped garden. They had invested too much into their home to walk away from a bully, even he was a dangerous one. ‘We continue on the same track. As long as the product remains a consistent quality, then we’ll never have to deal with the man again.’

  ‘And what if it doesn’t?’ Del argued. ‘What if they start cutting it?’

  ‘People won’t tolerate shit product, Del.’

  ‘Who is going to complain to a psycho like McGee?’

  ‘No one.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘That is why we need to kill him,’ she said, shrugging. She played with her hair as she spoke, rubbing it between her fingers. ‘If he starts playing games and tries to cut the product or push us around, then we take h
im out. You will take him out.’

  ‘Just kill him?’

  ‘Just kill him,’ she said, nodding slowly. ‘He threatened my children and from what you have told me tonight and judging by the state of your face, he will carry out his threats. We will carry on as normal for now but that man will not hold us to ransom by threatening my children. No one threatens my children. Whatever happens, we kill the bastard, sooner rather than later.’

  They hadn’t looked back. Over the following two years, their attitude to the business became more clinical. Del slipped into the role well, joined a gym, injected some nandrolone, cut his hair and had boxing lessons. He did what Lucy wanted him to do. He toughened up. The product arrived regularly as promised and business stayed constant and smooth. Until recently, that is, when their clients started complaining that the gear was cut. It was inevitable really, greed reared its ugly head. They made the decision to remove him. Charlie McGee had to go at the first opportunity and Del was now sitting in a cell.

  Del heard footsteps approaching and then a key being inserted in the lock. The door opened and two uniformed officers stepped in. One of them smiled and gestured for him to stand up.

  ‘Interview time,’ he said, taking his arm. They walked a short distance through the custody suite to the interview rooms. Alec and Jo were already sitting down. Del had his brief attending, a Jewish man from a Woolton firm called Goodstone and Goodstone. They dispensed with the legalities and Del played the answers over and over in his head. If he got this right, he would walk.

  ‘Can you tell me where you were on the night of the twenty-seventh, Derek?’ Alec began.

  ‘Call me Del, please,’ Del began in a relaxed tone. ‘I was in the city centre at the Paradise club doing some business with an associate of mine, Jazz. His real name is Walter Ricks.’ Del answered confidently. He held eye contact with Alec. ‘And I didn’t shoot him if that is your next question. He was alive when I left his office.’