The front door to Fenbrook Manor was opened by a thickset man with short cropped hair and a tattoo on his neck. The man stared at each of the four visitors standing on the doorstep and did not greet them. Finally he nodded to the men with the Mullets, and let them in. When the Africans made to enter the door as well, he slammed the door shut in their faces. The Africans were not happy. One of them kicked at a sturdy stone plant pot beside the door, the other man spat on the steps. Inside the house, he watched as the Mitkins met with Gillespie behind the window. The woman started laughing like someone had given her a hit of gas, and then he saw the cause of her laughter. Brian Gillespie entered the picture, angry, and shouting, his face contorted and his mouth a spluttering hole in his face. The Mitkins enteredthe picture, and he saw the smaller one, a firebrand shaking with indignation, giving a few words back. The taller one remained silent, arms folded, aloof, contemplative. A couple of stocky-looking roughnecks entered the room from the side door. The stage was set for a fight, if Gillespie wanted, but he seemed content to holler. The hunched old man moved into the smaller Mitkin’s space and shouted hard. The smaller Mitkin didn’t retaliate. It was all like watching a silent movie, except in colour and without captions. A few minutes later, the whole troop moved out of the room, the front door opened, and they spilled outside onto the driveway, including the leather faced old hunchback himself. Was this about racism? Was it about pride? No, Parker reckoned caution caused Gillespie not to welcome the Somalis into his home. Parker still couldn’t hear them, but the implications of all this were clear in his mind. He surmised: the Mitkins were definitely working for Brian Gillespie. Gillespie had an arrangement with the Mitkins, but not the Somalis, because he neither liked nor trusted them. Parker had heard of the London dealings of the Somali network, but he knew little of their activities in Essex. Wherever they worked, they were known to be ruthless, respecters of no man and no law. Life was worthless to them. They were danger personified. They were relentless. They kept coming even if you killed some of them. It was a brilliant reputation to own as a gang, and it seemed to be true. If the London papers and the police grapevine in London were right, the Somali gang’s reputation was justified. But Gillespie was an evil old bastard, wily as a fox, and still as sharp as ever. His enemies would not be able to take him easily, even now, even as old as this. Parker picked up his Dictaphone. “Gillespie hosts the Mitkin brothers and the Somalis without letting them in his house, keeping his own men at his side, close by throughout. He is safe from an assault or ambush, unless with a rifle. Lee Mitkin and Robert Mitkin present. Lee does all the talking, the older brother watching and saying the odd comment. Neither seems to enjoy taking orders from old Gillespie.” His commentary was worth little to anyone, certainly not his paymasters, but it was an old habit and it passed the time. He looked at his watch. If Eva was going to make any kind of approach to Gillespie to help find Dan, she surely would have done it by now. And right now, she would have been insane to do it. It was full of unpredictable elements. But he hoped she would try. There were endless possibilities with a gang of ruthless killers around. Perhaps in the chaos, the Somalis would slay Gillespie and his men. The Mitkin brothers might survive. They were like rats - they could survive a nuclear attack. Eva, beautiful Eva and her pretty brat… he hoped that both of them would survive any such encounter. After all, they had their lives ahead of them… but in the end, what could he do to prevent it? There was action, the camera of life was rolling, and all the players were ready. What was set in motion was too late to be stopped. And in his wisdom, by engineering Eva and Co into the thick of it, there was a very good chance Eva would create just the kind of situation whereby the old Gypsy would be killed. And if that happened, Devon Parker would claim the glory and take the payment due. After all, making Eva do the dirty work was all his own idea. He scanned the surrounding areas. He could not see her Alfa parked anywhere. He looked for other possible hideouts and found none. He was the only watcher around. It irked him, made him angry. They had been playing along, had they not? The bitches. Women were so full of snide trickery. Even after Dan had been taken hostage, with a race against time to save him, Eva had deviated from the agreed rescue plan. The plan was ‘Get Gillespie.’ Either they believed him and were on their way, or they had pretended to believe him. Devon didn’t like the second possibility, but if his lying wife Barbara’s shenanigans were anything to go by, every appearance was to be mistrusted. Every truth from a female mouth was a sweet but devious lie. This wasn’t a game. Didn’t they get it? Even if they doubted the logic he had presented them, if they didn’t move fast, Dan would certainly end up dead. He poured himself a small coffee and grimaced over another thought. And if they move faster, Dan still ends up dead. But the game was unfolding - it was too late to intervene now. This was the only way to fix his life. Besides, whatever chance his young protégé once had, well, he had ruined it all himself, hadn’t he? Parker thought this was as good as any other method to put Dan’s story of wasted chances to a suitable end. Dan’s involvement was the glue that would save the rest of Parker’s life. Eva was the curveball. Gillespie was the target. Devon Parker was going to have his ten years of peace, no matter how hard Barbara tried to ruin him. And who knew – in the years he had left, maybe he would get even with the old cold bitch as well.
Three
It was evening on still the first of the three days Eva had given herself to bring Dan home alive. Being a private detective was not a regular nine to five gig, but Eva usually worked eight hours in a day and still had time for resting, listening to music, some running or a gym work out, reading a few chapters of a novel and drinking a couple of glasses of any quaffable dry white wine. But for the past three days, normality had left the building. To save Dan, she and Jess would have to burn the candle at both ends. They hadn’t really considered involving the police yet, though Eva knew Rowntree would be apoplectic when he found out, but she didn’t need Rowntree all over her trying to prove what a good policeman he was, implying he would be a great lover as well. She rather doubted the latter, even if the former was half true. Besides, it was widely known that the police were pretty corrupt. How had the Somali gangs been allowed to take root and prosper in Southend? The excuse was they were under surveillance at a distance, the police creating a bank of intelligence before they rounded them all up. This excuse had been mooted as the reason for the failure to tackle their menace, but that argument stank. It wasn’t just the Somalis. There were ghettos and cesspits where all kinds of villains were permitted to roam to indulge their deviances and addictions all over the town. It was like No Man’s Land, but some people had to live right there amongst it. The Somalis were rampant, dominating the most desperate spots of Southend by night like a brood of Hollywood vampires. And how had Galvan been allowed to conduct his comedy betting ring for so long? Then how come two Essex boy stereotypes like the Mitkins, replete with chains of gold and Mullets been permitted to thrive, when it was so easy to see what kind of scum they were any time of day? And finally, just out of town, there was the notorious Roe Park. Last year the police sent warnings, followed by squads in riot gear. The national media said it would be the end of the matter- Roe Park would be emptied, and the Traveller gangsters, and their enormous suspect wealth was to be wiped out. But if anyone visited Roe Park before and after the police siege, they would have been hard pressed to find a single difference, save for a newly patriotic Roe Park. When the press did not cover the failure of the operation, it became nothing more than a forgotten story. So Eva had too many doubts about informing the police of her mission. Rowntree’s designs on her were just the cherry on top. Tonight they moved on alone. Eva didn’t carry any weapons, bar the mobile phone stun-gun she’d ordered in via the States. It was illegal in the UK, but so was all the stuff carried by the opposition. She needed a last ditch defence mechanism to protect her and Jess, especially if anything went wrong. The stun-gun looked like a decent mobile phone from the era just before the smart phones ar
rived on the scene. If anyone checked her bag they would have seen a duff-looking phone but nothing suspicious.
They parked near the Kingsmere Estate and waited. The Mitkin brothers had disappeared a long time ago, leaving behind a clutch of gangly Africans that had to be the Somalis. They moved in twos, gathering into temporary huddles for smokes, turning to face people who passed them by with a mixture of salesman hustle and offensive hostility. Their tough angular faces gave a warning. If you weren’t in the game for buying gear, heroin or coke, then what the hell were you doing on their patch – and get lost quick before you get hurt. They seemed to thrive on the threat of their presence in the darkness, and mainly, it worked. They were a clear deterrent to living like a normal person on the Estate. Eva only saw the normal residents by day, going to and from work and shops. At this time, they would be under lock down, keen to avoid their homes being taken over as one of the gangster’s drug factories. It was said that the gang roved the flats and bed-sits of the town, and piggy-backed onto a weak person’s life and home. The practice was called ‘cuckooing.’ It worked best if the resident was a drug addict, as with free drugs they would easily make the addict stoned enough to submit. In no time their swiped flat was the hub of chemical production, cutting and sales; distributing deals all over the area. If the flat got too hot under the eye of the police, they would cut and run. Sometimes they would torch the flats on the way out, destroying the evidence, and the lives of the hosts to boot. There were two versions of Southend now. There was the one which normal people believed in – a mixture of work stresses, an economy under pressure, a patchwork of run down suburbs and glorious historical pockets and a Victorian seaside slapped next to neon, beer and chip shops. It was an English seaside town, and in the main it seemed content, if slightly underwhelmed with itself. But by night, it was best to be asleep and behind locked doors. Fights, attacks, muggings, the homeless being beaten and urinated on, drunks getting drunker, and beggars demanding beer money… But it was still home, both sides of it, and Eva was a private eye, used to the contrast between what the eye is supposed to see and the world in the periphery. Every case she had taken on involved uncovering such duplicity. And now she found it everywhere. It made sense that the town she lived in, which supplied her with all this work, would be no different to the people who lived in it.
“There she is.”
“That’s Laura? That’s the one Dan was seeing?” said Jess with disgust and surprise in her voice before she slurped loudly from a milkshake straw. Eva hadn’t said outright about her suspicion that Laura and Dan had had a thing going, but Jess was as sharp as a Stanley knife. Eva tried to think of how she could better employ the girl’s sharpness. She was damn good after all.
Laura was in her all black number again, and Eva hoped for her sake she just owned a wardrobe full of black. She was with the Somalis and one of them, the tallest one, put a long arm around her shoulder and started muttering to her until she laughed, though she looked neither happy nor comfortable. The man slipped something into her hand, and then quickly seized the girl’s face, and they kissed.
“He’s forcing her to kiss him,” said Jess.
“I doubt she wants to. Unless she isn’t what she seems.”
“Dan told me she isn’t. She is with one of the Mitkin brothers. That’s when Dan got the money. That Laura woman was making the beast with two backs with one of the Mitkins, then Dan found some money and stuff in their car.”
“She is a prostitute. The Mitkins are pimps. It looks like these guys are doing some pimp work too. I wonder if the Mitkins know about it.”
“That girl gets pumped more often than BP.”
Eva turned and gave Jess a severe look in the semi darkness of the car, but Eva was smirking too, and Jess knew it.
“Yeah, I know, I shouldn’t think like that. She is a poor girl trapped in a life she doesn’t want and all that. But Dan didn’t think she was too upset about doing the deed with Mitkin, whichever one it was.”
“Maybe because Dan was jealous.”
“Probably, he’s a man after all. But don’t start believing that Dan being jealous means he still doesn’t have a thing for you. I know men.”
“You’re twenty-two. How do you know men?”
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to. Anyway, I know men. They can lust after one woman, want another one to be his mummy, and fall in love with another all at the same time. That’s just how messed up they are about sex. I can’t talk - I’m a bit like that myself. How about you?”
“My romantic life is just about the one thing which is under control right now.”
“Really? That sounds fun. Under control as in the deep freeze! Richard must be rocking your world.”
“Jess! That’s out of order.”
“Come on, Eva. You’re the boss, but we’re going to be working around the clock for three nights solid, right?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“So please loosen up. You can trust me. You know that already.”
“Of course. You’re the Riker to my Picard.”
“You what?”
“Before your time.”
“Right. So, you and Richard. Have you done it yet?”
“Excuse me! Wait… Laura’s on the move.”
“You are thirty-something, and you could just be the best looking red-head in town, but probably haven’t had any action in almost two years, right? And you’re going out with a man who looks like a librarian and turns you on so much you say your romantic life – is under control. You and I have needed to have this talk for a while now.”
“Yes, I am in my thirties. I am a successful business woman. I don’t need to take advice from a naughty little girl who knows too much for her own good.”`
“That was a put down, right? A clever person’s way of saying I slept around.”
“Let’s leave this, Jess. We need to speak to Laura. She’s heading towards Southchurch. We can follow on foot. Come on.”
“We’re not finished, Eva.”
They trailed Laura along a half mile walk down the Southchurch Road. Eva knew she would make a right soon, turning towards the latest hotspot for picking up tricks. A few years back this kind of business had been nearer the Kingsmere Estate, but somehow the police had pushed the kerb-crawling frontier back into the quieter, residential suburbs of Southchurch. Eva wasn’t interested in watching Laura get picked up; she already knew what that looked like. She wanted to speak to Laura before the girl got busy and while the Mitkins were otherwise engaged. She had her window, and it was now. The Southchurch Road was a busy thoroughfare between the towns of Shoebury and Southend. It was not quite a High Street, but it had plenty of shops and life going on. The road was full of lights from cars, street lamps and a couple of bars. As Laura was about to cross to the right hand side to take a right towards the girl’s trading area, Eva said, “Now,” and then called out Laura’s name. Laura halted at the roadside, and her blonde hair flicked round. Her eyes sparkled in the light of oncoming cars. Laura searched for a face she recognised, and when she did, she looked abruptly away.
“Wait, Laura, it’s important.”
“Do I know you?”
“You know you do.”
“I’m busy.”
“It’s a matter of life and death.”
Laura turned and petulantly dropped a hip like sulking teen. “I’m seriously busy.”
“I’m serious too. This will take twenty minutes and no more, but this is more serious than your next trick.”
“Piss off. Twenty minutes is a lot of my time.”
“Laura, come on. It’s about Dan.”
“I know it is.” Her eyes changed, something about her face hardened, and went numb. Eva recognised it. She had seen it before. It was her poker face. And a poker face was a tell-tale sign that a lie was about to come, or at least an attempt to hide one.
“I’ll buy you a drink.”
“It ain’t normally girls offering
me drinks.” She opened a clutch bag and took out a long cigarette from a pack. Eva didn’t know that they still made cigarettes like that anymore. Eva nodded towards a pub on the nearby street corner. It had gold writing on a black sign announcing that it was The Exodus. Thinking about it for the first time, Eva wondered if the owners were Bob Marley fans. The pub had been well decked out and she knew it had prices to suggest its aspirations not to be a dive. They walked in to a dark wooden interior with gleaming tables and a large sports screen. The moment they entered, at least twenty men in different groups turned around and the atmosphere changed. There were a few quiet but noticeable comments, and a couple of sexist chuckles. If the aliens had been sampling the atmospherics in the pub, they would have seen the testosterone level experiencing a major surge.
“This pub is full of men who aren’t getting any,” said Jess.
“Oh, I don’t know. They’re not getting it for free, that’s all.”
Jess took a look around with a scathingly arched eyebrow. It was the sort of look that had misogynists declaring them lesbians. But the look went unnoticed. Jess now played a game guessing which of the patrons looked ugly or desperate enough to pay for it. Laura had a dry smile on her face, a face worn by smoke, drink and worry. “You can’t tell which ones, you really can’t. There is no distinguishing factor. They don’t all look like rapists or geeks. They aren’t all ugly. Some are rich, some are poor. Some are married. That’s just the way it goes.”
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