Cry for Help

by Steve Mosby

  ‘Nobody around?’

  ‘Shouldn’t be. Can’t see anyone.’

  ‘Okay. Get him out.’

  The grip on my neck was released and the doors crunched open to either side. Someone grabbed fistfuls of the back of my coat and half-carried, half-threw me out onto the ground. I landed on my hands and knees, rain spitting down around me, and then was hoisted to my feet.

  We were parked in a small, deserted area at the top of some kind of recycling centre. Below me, beyond flaky railings, there was a row of enormous skips filled with debris: bin bags and old chairs and broken bits of wood. To one side, several large bottle banks were clustered together. I heard something rattle across the tarmac below, and felt the rain on me, the wind pushing.

  Choc was standing directly in front, nodding to himself. The energy I could sense inside him was frightening. It wasn’t even like when I’d seen him with Eddie. There was anger then, but it had felt slightly manufactured, whereas now he looked like he hadn’t slept or eaten in days. Like the anger was something he’d cultivated and was using to sustain himself. His eyes were hollow and empty.

  ‘Choc—’

  He reached into his jacket and produced a gun. I wanted to flinch, but his guys were holding me too tight, and so my heart just flipped inside me. Again and again.

  The words came out so quickly they fell over each other: ‘I don’t know what you’re thinking - whatever it is, it’s a mistake.’

  He ignored me, staring straight into my eyes. ‘Tell me what the fuck is going on.’

  ‘I don’t know—’

  He pointed the gun straight at my face.

  Out of instinct, I squinted and tried to turn away. His guys gripped me harder, holding me in place. The barrel gestured to one side, then back again.

  ‘Move him over to the barrier,’ Choc said.

  I fought against them but had no chance. You don’t fuck with me or my friends, I remembered. Don’t make me worry. Was this about Eddie?

  ‘I never told anyone,’ I said. ‘I’m not fucking stupid. I’d never have—’

  ‘Lean him.’

  I felt the railings against the small of my back, as they held me off balance. Choc closed one eye and pointed the gun at my head. His finger moved to the trigger. I screwed my eyes shut.

  ‘One chance only,’ he said. ‘Where is she?’

  Tori.

  ‘I don’t know! I swear to fucking God. It’s not me.’

  I ran out of things to say, and so I stopped and waited, expecting the shot at any second. Would I even have time to feel it, or would everything just stop? It didn’t make sense to imagine it, like trying to remember what you were thinking before you were born. I would just stop—

  ‘All right,’ Choc said. ‘Open your eyes.’

  After a second, I did. He was holding the gun loosely down by his side now, looking off into the distance. The guys that were holding me pulled me forward away from the railings, and then let go of me. It took me a second to appreciate the fact I wasn’t dead. My heart was beating so fast I thought it might trip up - maybe stop altogether, and I’d just die of fucking fright.

  ‘I believe you,’ he said.

  I bent down and leaned on my knees.

  ‘Deep breaths.’ He patted me on the back.

  ‘She’s been kidnapped,’ I said. ‘By that guy on the news.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ He rolled his shoulders. ‘Come on, man. Stand the fuck up.’

  I took another couple of breaths, then risked it.

  It seemed more or less okay.

  ‘I got a text from her,’ Choc said. ‘The police were there and they were interested in that. Too fucking interested. And then later on, she was all over the TV.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘We’ve been keeping a watch on your office all day. We followed that fat guy you work with.’

  ‘Rob.’

  ‘Yeah, we followed that guy. The police are at your house and your office, and there’s one of them who was keen on you yesterday morning when they showed up. Obvious conclusion is, they think it’s you.’

  I nodded. ‘It isn’t, though.’

  ‘Yeah. I believe you now. If I didn’t, you’d be in the skip. So the question is, why aren’t the police as smart as me right now? Aside from the usual reasons.’

  ‘I got a text from her too, and I went round to check she was okay. I found a note. The guy who’s taken her has been making me do things. He said if I told the police, he’d kill Tori. He’s been making it look as though it was me.’ I thought about Emma again. ‘Some of the things he’s made me do …’

  Choc tilted his head and looked at me. Re-evaluating me slightly, perhaps.

  ‘Yeah, but why? And who is this guy?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But he’s got Tori, and he’s going round to my girlfriend’s house. Probably right now. We’ve got to call the police.’

  Choc turned around and shook his head.

  ‘Not as easy as that.’

  ‘What? You said you believed me—’

  ‘Alex is dead.’

  He said it quietly, expecting it to silence me. It did. I tried to piece it together in my head, but I couldn’t. The only thing it explained was why Choc was so angry. Beneath it, I could now sense the grief inside him. He was standing with his back to me, utterly motionless.

  ‘What happened?’ I said.

  ‘Someone called round on him. Nothing got stolen, but he was beaten up pretty badly, as though someone wanted to get something out of him.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That, I don’t know. But in our line of work it pays to have a few sources. The police have found something at his place. Whatever it is, it connects him to this, somehow. Either the guy wanted it, or the guy left it.’

  Why would the killer have attacked Cardo?

  It didn’t make any sense.

  ‘Maybe he was watching me,’ I said. It was the only thing I could think of. ‘He might have followed you guys from my flat that evening you called round. But I don’t know why.’

  Choc nodded once, but not as though he believed it. Then he turned back to me. I expected there to be something in his face, even if it was just hatred or rage, but there was nothing. In fact, he looked completely calm, as though he’d just finished storing away the emotions I’d seen, until he was ready to use them properly.

  ‘You say he’s going to your girlfriend’s?’

  I nodded. ‘We need to call the police.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘We’re going ourselves.’

  He stared at me, as though daring me to disagree. I wanted to. But then I thought about it. If the killer was there when the police arrived, he might be true to his word and not tell them where Tori was. I glanced at the skip behind me. Choc would probably have a bit more success in getting him to talk.

  ‘Come on, then,’ I said.

  Chapter Thirty

  Saturday 3rd September

  Back in the incident room, sitting at his desk, Sam Currie was trying hard to soak up the fact that three of his officers had just spent the best part of an hour tracking Dave Lewis’s phone to a post office van on its way south of the city. The bastard must have stuck his mobile in an envelope and posted it.

  His resources were stretched thin enough as it was. He wearily addressed the officer who had called him.

  ‘You’re going to have to stay with the vehicle,’ he said. ‘And sort through the mail until you find the envelope it’s in.’

  ‘Okay, sir. There are about fifteen full bags in the back.’

  Jesus wept.

  He took his own mobile out and typed Dave Lewis’s number into it. Dialled. Waited.

  ‘Is one of the bags ringing, officer?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then it’s in that one.’

  He hung up, then closed his eyes and massaged them gently. His head was beginning to pound. An hour ago, despite the remaining questions, everything had been so much simpler. Lewis had seeme
d a dead lock for the killings, and they’d been closing in on him. Now they had no idea where he was or what was going on, and Currie no longer knew what to think.

  ‘Interfering with the post counts as treason,’ Swann offered. ‘Doesn’t that still carry the death penalty?’

  Currie raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

  Come on, Sam.

  He opened his eyes and picked up his coffee. The three of them - himself, Swann and Dan Bright - were sitting at a round table in the main incident room, slightly apart from the other officers.

  Bright was in his fifties, but had the good tan and tight skin of a man determined to wage war on the ageing process by any means necessary, including cosmetic. His grey hair was cut short and spiky, and he seemed trim and fit, dressed in an expensive-looking suit. Currie was annoyed to find himself feeling old in comparison - much as he did whenever Swann hit the gym, or had his hair styled. At least he could console himself that his partner had another ten years to stop caring.

  Bright had a case file in front of him, and was clearly waiting patiently for Currie to get his wits together. He still wasn’t sure why the man was here, or why they were going to listen to him - more than ever, Currie felt that urge to be moving - but at the moment there was nowhere else for them to go. The various scenes were ticking over slowly, and that was all they had.

  ‘Okay, Dan.’ He took a sip of coffee and tried to shrug away the tiredness. ‘Thanks for coming over.’

  ‘It’s my pleasure,’ he said. ‘If you can call it that. And when I put your phone call together with what I’d seen on the news, it was also my responsibility.’

  Currie glanced at the whiteboard. ‘I should tell you that I was only wanting some background when I phoned. Carroll’s name came up in the course of our investigation, but we don’t think he’s responsible. In fact, we know he isn’t.’

  Bright looked at him for a second, and his face reminded Currie of Mary. You have no idea what my father is capable of.

  ‘Perhaps it would help if I told you a little more about him?’

  Currie relented. ‘Okay. Give us some context on him. He was a colleague of yours, is that right? A detective.’

  Bright nodded.

  ‘We do things a little differently down there, though. In the city, I guess you cover a lot of different ground, but Richmond is small, and in those days, we more or less handled our own patches. Everything from community support upwards. Frank was Officer in Charge of the Carnegie estate. It’s a pretty scrappy area. A lot of it was dockland and industrial. A few streets of council houses.’

  ‘A bad area,’ Currie said.

  ‘A lot of crime on a lot of levels. Frank didn’t turn the area around by any means, but the people knew him and liked him. He had a big effect on quality of life without bringing down any majors: came down hard on the gangs when they bothered normal people, left them be when they kept to themselves. So he had a lot of respect. People in the community knew they could go to him if they needed help. And the criminal elements always knew where they stood.’

  ‘I can sense a ‘‘but’’ coming.’

  ‘Frank was dirty as hell.’

  Currie nodded to himself, remembering.

  That’s not in the file. It might say he was a policeman, but it won’t say he was a criminal, too. That he ran the whole neighbourhood.

  ‘Taking money to look the other way?’

  ‘No, he was more involved than that. Far happier in the driving seat than waving the car through. Over the years, Carnegie became his own little kingdom.’

  ‘And nobody knew about this?’

  ‘Nobody he didn’t know enough about in return. There were rumours, of course.’

  ‘What kind of rumours are we talking about here?’

  ‘People disappearing. Or worse.’

  He shot one of them in the kitchen. That man was already dead when I saw him. The other, my father just knocked him down. And then he turned on the stove.

  ‘But I have to stress, they were only rumours.’ Bright leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. He looked a little awkward. ‘And as an officer … well, you waver slightly, don’t you? Frank was very careful about what he did, and in his own way he appeared to be a good cop. So the question is, do you pursue something like that?’

  Currie didn’t say anything. The answer seemed fairly obvious to him, and he thought it was to Bright as well. But then, hindsight made everything easier.

  ‘Anyway, nobody wanted to talk. They were either too in awe of him, or else too afraid. Frank was a very charismatic man. He exercised a great deal of power and control over everyone he met.’

  ‘Power and control,’ Swann said. ‘That’s interesting.’

  Bright glanced at the whiteboard. From his expression, it made far more sense to him than it did to Currie.

  ‘Power was always his real motivation,’ he said. ‘Frank enjoyed being head of the pack. Liked to feel he was above and beyond the people he dealt with. They were just a ‘‘herd’’ to him. I remember him saying that in the locker room once.’

  ‘But none of this ever stuck?’

  ‘No. When he was arrested, he wouldn’t say a word. I’m sure he could have taken a large number of people down with him if he’d wanted, but he chose to keep his mouth shut instead. As a result, it was touch and go whether we’d even make it through with what we had.’

  Maybe he’s still got friends in the police.

  Someone faking it for him.

  ‘And what you had was Mary,’ Currie said.

  Bright nodded.

  ‘I still remember it. I received a call from an elderly woman outside the Carnegie estate. It was just after midnight. Frank’s daughter had knocked on her door. After we brought them to the station, Mary told me she’d been wandering the streets for over an hour in the snow. Her and her little brother. She’d knocked at this lady’s house because she’d looked in the window and seen all the books.’

  ‘Books?’

  ‘Yes. She didn’t think someone who had shelves full of books would hurt her.’

  ‘So she … escaped?’

  ‘Yes. We learned all this later, that her father had been abusing her for years. Both of them, but she always took the brunt of it. One of his favourite pastimes was to tie her to her bed and leave her for the weekend. Sometimes even longer.’

  ‘That’s what interested us to begin with,’ Swann said.

  ‘No food, no water,’ Bright said. ‘Hard to imagine, isn’t it?’

  ‘Why would he do something like that?’

  ‘Power and control,’ Bright repeated. ‘To break her spirit and teach her the truth as he saw it. That nobody would come to help her.’

  Currie thought: It was my favourite book when I was a little girl.

  A story where the hero put aside all his other responsibilities and came to do what he knew in his heart was right. If what Bright was telling them was true, he could imagine how much a man like Frank Carroll would have delighted in taking such a pure and idealistic belief and ripping it to pieces. Prove it wrong.

  ‘And nobody did,’ he said.

  ‘We didn’t realise.’

  Again, that almost pained look, as though he knew deep down he hadn’t done enough. As though it haunted him.

  ‘Even his neighbours convinced themselves Mary was fine, although they must have suspected. But anyone close enough … they either refused to believe it or were too frightened to say anything. And I’m sure that made it all the more enjoyable for him.’

  Currie struggled to accept it. Someone like Charlie Drake … he could understand the silence there. Even if he despised it, he could see it made sense. Selling smack to other dealers was one thing. But this was a little girl.

  ‘People kept out of his affairs, Sam,’ Bright said. ‘It isn’t that strange.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  Bright didn’t say anything, but his expression changed slightly. Looking at him now, Currie could see the old man behin
d the façade. And he realised that was precisely what it was. The tan, the hairstyle, the good suit - all just armour to protect the brittle emotions inside.

  ‘So she rescued herself, basically?’

  Bright nodded. ‘Her brother, too. I can’t imagine the courage it must have taken. It was her testimony that got us the conviction.’

  Currie leaned back. He could understand now why Mary had been so afraid of her father, so insistent he would want to find her. Not only had she escaped from the web of power he’d constructed - the control he’d been so obsessed with - she’d taken every scrap of it away from him. It was only natural to assume he’d want revenge for that.

  In his head, I’m all that matters.

  ‘And this,’ Bright nodded at the whiteboard, ‘fits in perfectly with the way Frank would behave. He was always an arch manipulator of people. And he always loved rubbing their faces in their own weaknesses.’

  Currie shook his head. They needed to keep a sense of perspective here.

  ‘But we know it’s not him. He’s tagged. His movements are on record.’

  Bright said nothing.

  After a moment of silence, Swann stood up. ‘I’ll check his whereabouts. Bring him in.’

  Currie watched his partner head across the office, and remembered the conversation he’d had with Dave Lewis earlier. I can’t explain anything right now. And Lewis had sent that text to his own phone. Was he trying to tell them something? If so, why not just come out and do it?

  He turned back to Bright. ‘How would Dave Lewis fit into this, assuming you’re right? Let’s say Frank Carroll is manipulating him somehow. Why him?’

  ‘There doesn’t have to be a reason,’ Bright said. ‘Their paths will have crossed at some point, and Frank will have decided to play with him. It could be as straightforward as that.’

  Over on the other side of the room, Swann was on the phone. One hand on his hip, the fingers tapping impatiently.

  ‘I’ve met him, though,’ Currie said. ‘Frank Carroll. He seems very different now from the man you’re describing. Beaten down. Broken.’