by Emmy Ellis
What he’d said made sense. There was stepping on Grafton turf to flog a few baggies, then there was asking for a bullet in your head by coming to the Jade. The fact a machete was used maybe meant the masked man didn’t have a firearm—so was he some two-bit ponce who’d tried his luck and ran off after he’d killed Jiang? Had the death been an error?
She’d find out soon enough once she spoke to Li Jun. For now, Jason could put the body in a bag inside his boot, then she’d message Ted and Felix Smith, cousins originally from Yorkshire, old men who’d worked for Dad at the meat factory for years and ran a butcher’s stall on the Saturday market. Their other job was feeding Marlene then driving to Handel Farm to dispose of the mince.
So many people were involved with Cassie running the estate, people she couldn’t do without. Well, she’d need them now, to become her ears, listening out for rumours, but first, she’d place a call to Karen Scholes. An edition of The Barrington Life needed sending out.
And whoever had murdered Jiang had a date with Marlene in their future. No question.
Chapter Two
Li Jun had helped Jason put the body in the bag and carry it to the boot. Fucking hell, that machete had almost chopped Jiang’s head off, and as they’d lifted the poor bastard, the head flopped back, hanging by the skin on the nape, which threatened to rip and send Jiang’s bonce rolling across the road where Jason had parked. He was fascinated by the mess, the gore, the way Li Jun cradled the head so it didn’t fall, but hid his true feelings on the matter. If Li Jun copped on that he’d enjoyed seeing the bloodied flesh and whatnot, it wouldn’t go down well with Cassie.
He couldn’t afford to piss her off.
Yet.
Jason drove away, a despondent and seriously grieving Li Jun watching him go, his shoulders shuddering with his sobs, face wet with tears. Jason supposed it would be sad for your nephew to get a blade to the throat, but he didn’t have time for sentiment. Nor did he care.
He headed for the meat factory. Cassie had messaged Ted and Felix, so they’d be there by the time Jason arrived. No need to lay the body on the ground and cover it with the tarpaulin, hiding it until the men got there, something he usually did. The cousins could heft the corpse straight out of the boot and do what they did best while Jason paid a visit to the knob who’d fucked up the Jade job.
The lights and silhouettes of houses grew smaller in his rearview mirror, hedges, trees, and fields taking over either side, blackened skeletons dancing against a dark-grey sky, the wind letting off a mournful howl. The meat factory stood ahead on the right, a business front for the Graftons, the only bad thing going on there the mincing of humans who’d taken a step too far and found themselves in the bad books.
Jason didn’t plan on being one of them.
As far as anyone not in the know was concerned, the factory was legit, but if he didn’t get his ultimate goal—becoming leader of the Barrington—he’d tip off the coppers and direct them to Marlene. No matter how many times that mincer was washed, it wouldn’t hide her sins. Human DNA lurked on it somewhere, and forensics would find it.
How many people have been minced since Lenny started? Got to be hundreds. And how many people in these parts have eaten pork from pigs who’ve scoffed that mince?
The masked man came to mind, and Jason gritted his teeth. What had the dick been thinking, actually using the machete? He was supposed to go in, threaten everyone with it, and nick the drugs. They were Jason’s ticket to buying Mam a house on New Barrington, but look what had happened. The damn drugs were still at the Jade, locked up in a fridge.
“If you want a job done properly, you do it yourself,” he muttered.
The problem was, if he’d done it, he might have slipped up. While he’d been the one to skim the takings off the sex workers’ earnings to frame Nathan Abbott, therefore putting not only a spanner in the works but a ruddy great hammer, he couldn’t risk doing the Jade job.
Cassie had suggested it was the dealer Richie had worked for. Not likely, and he’d steered her away from that particular can of maggots. Jason had chosen someone he’d known since school, a rough little bastard who didn’t even know it was Jason directing him. He’d done it all via a burner phone, changing his voice, dropping off the first half of the payment in a bin outside Greggs, a disguise on, and the second half was meant to go to him later, after the meal with Cassie.
“Like that’s going to happen now.”
Cassie wasn’t supposed to go to the Jade until after their date at The Donny—or at least get a phone call from Li Jun mid-sausage and mash. When she’d said on the phone she was on her way to the Chinese, he’d panicked, wondering if the masked man would still be there. Thankfully, he’d already fucked off, but it had been a close call.
He thumped the steering wheel, the side of his fist throbbing from the impact. “Why is it, every time I get close enough to her, shit happens so I have to take a step back?”
He was sick of things going wrong. Brenda Nolan, a woman who worked for Cassie by scamming old men on their death beds, had told him to stay in the background, not do owt to draw attention to himself if he wanted to take over the patch, and while that advice was good, he didn’t want to wait. Hence framing Nathan Abbott and sending that bloke into the Jade. He needed Cassie to rely on him while her hold on the patch slipped. He’d be her right hand and her confidant, knowing her moves every step of the way so he could scupper them.
“I’m going to send her proper mental,” he said to his reflection in the rearview. “Get her doubting herself until she’s so confused she leans on me, hands the estate over. I’ll run it then, kick the queen off her perch, and wear the king’s crown.”
He laughed. What a prick he was, talking to himself, but there was no one else he could talk to, no one he trusted enough with his plan.
He turned onto the road that led to the factory and rounded the building, thinking to park beside the industrial-sized wheelie bins at the rear, then changed his mind. He reversed to the door. Ted and Felix sat in their runabout close by, their heads only shapes in the darkness, no features discernible. Jason switched the engine off and got out, approaching the other vehicle, naffed his posh shoes might get dirty.
The cousins joined him outside, Ted going to unlock the door. He switched on the light, and it spilt out, casting a creamy rectangle on the ground, the top exposing the toes of Jason’s shoes.
Yeah, they were dirty.
Fucking Nora.
“What the devil have you got for us tonight then?” Felix laced his hands at the base of his skull and stretched, his bones clicking in sync with the beep of Ted pressing the alarm keypad. “We were watching a right good film, then Cassie got hold of us, said there was a body. She didn’t go into details, like.”
Maybe because it’s none of your fucking business?
While his thought was true, Jason couldn’t resist acting the one in the know and was chuffed he could tell him what had gone on. “Jiang from the Jade.” He opened his boot. The interior light splashed on, revealing the lumpy body bag.
“What did he do, piss Cassie off?” Ted came to stand beside Jason and peered into the boot.
“Nope. Someone sliced his neck with a machete.” Jason unzipped the bag then reached across to his toolbox, ferreting about in there for the hacksaw.
“A robbery, was it?” Felix frowned. “’Ere, what are you doing?”
Jason gripped Jiang’s hair and tugged the head up. “It’s hanging on by a thread, see?” He used the saw and attacked the skin and flesh, taking his anger out on it, the head breaking free, a chunk of fat plopping onto the bag’s zip. He held his prize up and looked Jiang in the eyes, wishing he could see into his mind, his last moments, feel the fear he must have experienced. He glanced at Felix. “This might have fallen off when you two took him out. I’ve saved you some mess to clean up. Like, if it’s dropped on the floor, you’d be needing the mop and bucket, and I’m sure you’d rather save some time so you can get back to your f
ilm.”
Felix snatched the head and stuffed it back in the bag, the glob of fat pinging off somewhere inside the boot. “That’s for us to deal with. What’s wrong with you, lad, chopping it off like that?” He glanced at Ted. “Go and get the trolley, will you.”
Ted tutted and ambled off, mumbling something or other. Jason tossed the saw into the toolbox. He’d clean the blade later when he had a bit of time—when Mam had gone to bed so she didn’t come nosing—plus find that lump of fat.
“Watch you don’t get yourself caught up in unnecessary things,” Felix warned. “Just do what’s asked of you, nowt more. Cassie and her weapon… You don’t want to mess with her. She’s worse than Lenny, vicious now, and that’s saying something.”
That got Jason’s hackles rising, and the pitch-black tar of anger soured his guts, boiling there, waiting to erupt. He kept it from spewing out of his mouth in a spiteful torrent and instead spoke quietly, his voice low. “Don’t tell me what to do, old man.”
Felix snorted, Jason’s threat seeming to go right over his head. “So it’s like that, is it? The job of right hand has gone to your nut? You’ve taken it upon yourself to shun the advice of someone who knows a thing or two? Years I’ve been doing this, and I know when to do something off my own bat and when to stick to the rules. You? That hacksaw blade’s got his DNA on it now, and it’ll have fallen off onto your other tools, and you’ll take it home most likely, clean it, spreading the evidence.”
He’s right, and my God do I hate it.
Rather than verbally agree with that, Jason chose a different tack. “It isn’t your place to give me advice. That privilege belongs to Cassie. She’s my boss, no one else.” Much as I hate to admit it. “Mind your own. I cut the skin because it saved you hassle, and this is the thanks I get for it. Remind me not to help you out again.”
They stared at each other, Jiang’s sightless eyes gazing up at them—Jason caught it in his peripheral, and it gave him the jitters. He broke the glare, the tension easing a tad, and zipped the bag to hide the dead bastard. Ted came out with the clanking trolley, further diluting the tension, and Jason stepped back to give the men room.
Body bag on the trolley, the cousins pushed it into the meat factory. Felix closed the door, and Jason stood in the darkness, glad to be alone so he could put a lid on his anger and lock it up until he visited the masked man.
He took a deep breath and studied the sky. No stars tonight. The moon hung there like some spying lump of silver, the eyes drooping, the mouth downturned and sad. The expression gave him the idea he was being judged.
“When I’m king,” he whispered, “I swear to fucking God, Felix will get up close and personal with Marlene. Righteous old bastard.”
He stomped to the driver’s side and got in, gunning the engine and peeling away from the factory, speeding down the road, the thrill of going too fast easing his serrated nerves. A left turn, and he was on his way back to town, shooting towards the street where Richie Prince had lived in a shithole bedsit, a few doors away from Mam’s. Doreen still lived there in her little house, so he’d have to be careful. If she peered out of her window or her boyfriend, Harry, showed up and spotted Jason, Doreen would tell Cassie in a heartbeat, especially now she received a weekly cash-in-hand wage for spying as much as that creepy moon.
Jason parked in the next street along instead. He stuck a false beard and moustache on, some bushy eyebrows, a black beanie covering his hair, and struggled with coloured contact lenses in the gloom. An old jacket on the back seat would further disguise him—he wouldn’t be seen dead in that these days—and he switched out his nice, if filthy shoes for manky trainers, all the while keeping an eye out for people watching him. Gloves on, coast clear, he left the car, slipping down an alley that connected the two streets.
Ordinarily, he’d take the masked man to the squat and kill him, but that would need an explanation, and he couldn’t be doing with that. Cassie would ask how he’d found out who the killer was so quickly, and besides, it was better that he remained on the outside of things, as if he didn’t know the fella at all.
He walked up to the skinny two-bed with its green front door showcased by a porch roof lantern, one of the panels of glass missing. Taking his flick knife out of his pocket, he released the blade, which shot upwards from the handle, and he stabbed the bulb, sinking him and his surroundings into darkness. Glass clinked onto the path in the echo of the pop from the bulb.
Knife away, burner out of his pocket, he texted the masked man: I’m at yours. Open the front door.
It didn’t take long for the sound of a chain being drawn across to poke its scrape and tinkle into the night. The door opened a couple of inches, and a slice of Brett Davis’ bruised face and gangly body filled the gap.
“Move out of the fucking way,” Jason snapped, his voice belonging to someone else. Menacing.
He pushed the door, sending a scrawny, oily-haired Brett staggering backwards and dropping down onto the stairs, a bag of bones inside oversized grey clothing, the usual trackies and hoody so many opted for these days. Hadn’t he had a shower after the murder if his hair was chip-pan lank? And where were the clothes he’d had on? The mask? If they were stashed indoors somewhere, that wasn’t good.
I’ll find them.
Jason entered, turned to check the street—no one nosing as far as he could tell—then closed the door. He faced Brett, who stared up at him, clearly trying to work out if he’d seen him before.
“You fucked up. At the Jade.” Jason lunged forward and gripped Brett’s hoody in a tight fist. “Up you get.”
Brett’s blue eyes watered, and spittle formed at the corners of his mouth, the slack-lipped bastard. “There was nowt I could do. I had to slice him to get away.”
Jason propelled him into the kitchen at the back. The garnet-red blind was down at the window, scallops along the bottom, a gold pole threaded through them, and a scabby brown curtain hung over the back door, moth-eaten, or maybe the small holes were from fag burns created on drunken nights. Brett was known for his shitty parties, drug-fuelled evenings where the smoke from weed loitered close to the ceiling, grey-tinged indoor clouds that formed dragons and angels to those off their heads, their foggy hallucinations adding to the buzz.
“Take your kecks down,” Jason ordered.
Brett stood by the dining table, surface type unknown it was that cluttered with crap. “You what?”
“I said, take your kecks down.” Jason gripped the handle of the flick knife in his pocket. “You cocked the operation up and need to pay.”
Brett fumbled with the waistband of his trackies. “Aww, come away now, man. I told you, I had no choice. Li Jun was coming at me, and Jiang got there first. I said for them to back off, but they didn’t fucking listen.”
“Then you should have run out of the yard and pissed off, shouldn’t you, instead of murdering him. Bottoms. Off.”
“This is a bit much, this is. Why do I need to take them off anyroad?”
Jason took the knife out and waved the handle at Brett. “You’re a pain in my arse, and you need to know what that feels like.”
“What’s with the knife? It is a knife, isn’t it?”
Jason’s patience had run out. “Get them off,” he shouted, his throat straining from the pressure of anger.
Brett scrabbled to do as he was told. The thick twat was by his back door, only had to wrench the curtain across, turn the key, and he’d be out of there. Fear of Jason must be forcing him to obey, and Jason got off on that.
“Now your boxers.” And, Jesus Christ, they could do with a wash.
Brett did as he was told and covered his meat and two with trembling hands.
“Bend over that table and part your legs.” Jason took a step forward, a stomp to scare the man.
Brett flung himself over the paraphernalia—plates with food stuck to them, magazines, cups half filled with coffee—and some things fell to the floor.
“Where’s the clothing yo
u had on at the Jade?” Jason scanned the room for it but spotted nowt.
“In my w-washing m-machine.”
That was something then.
“Spread your arse cheeks.” Jason moved to stand behind a quivering Brett, repulsed by his pasty backside covered in a light dusting of black fur.
“Please, not that.” Brett whimpered. “Don’t rape me. Owt but that.”
“Rape you?” Jason laughed and bent over to inspect the eye of the storm in the arse crack. “I wouldn’t touch you that way. You’re a fucking pervert for even thinking of it.” He lined the top of the knife handle up with the brown star. “But you’ll be buggered by something else in a second.”
Jason pressed the blade release button, and the knife shot up into the hole. Blood, split skin, Brett howling, his head thrown back, baying at the ceiling. The prat slumped onto the crockery, knocking a coffee cup over, and he gripped the opposite edge of the table, knuckles pale, his body convulsing. Blood trickled down the insides of his thighs. Jason flicked his wrist, the blade skirting the base of the baggy bollocks, then withdrew the knife, leaving Brett to scream and bleed while he cleaned his weapon at the sink.
“Noisy wanker.” Jason smiled at the blood diluting in the stream coming from the tap, the pink landing on the dirty dishes in the stacked washing-up bowl.
Brett’s volume decreased, and he sobbed, mumbling crap Jason didn’t want to hear. Oh God, I’m so sorry and I won’t do owt like that again.
“No, you won’t.” Jason returned to his place behind Brett and, cringing, grabbed his greasy hair, yanking his head back. Knife in his left hand, placed at the scrag end’s neck, he bent low to whisper, “This isn’t a machete, but it’ll do the job.”
He sliced across, deliberately arcing his arm sidewards so the blood streaked the gross curtains. Using his non-dominant hand would have the police looking for a leftie, and that suited Jason down to the ground.
Brett gurgled, and Jason peered around to watch the blood gushing from the wound. It splashed onto the shit on the table, coating it in rivers and dots, creating a lovely mess.
