Insider (The Glass Family)

by Owen Mullen

  He could join the club.

  I counted four sharp, intelligent people with plenty to contribute – the future of everything I’d built depended on them, yet there were chasms of distrust and worse between them: Nina and Charley, sisters and rivals who would never be friends; George Ritchie, still licking his wounds over being made to look a fool by Charley’s stunts in Lewisham and Lambeth. He was a patient man; he’d bide his time but, one way or another, the score would get settled – it was who he was. From the beginning, there had been tension between him and Nina. I blamed her, not that it changed anything. How often had I had to tell myself Nina was Nina?

  Except, my tolerance was zero – somebody was out to destroy me and, so far, was making a bloody good job of it.

  I nodded for Mark Douglas to kick off. He said, ‘George’s guys have removed the body and are working on the clean-up. The flat’s being swept, though I’m not expecting to find anything that helps with this. Drake’s in his spare bedroom sleeping it off, with a guy outside his door. He won’t be going anywhere till he understands we own him now.’ Douglas shot a glance at Ritchie. ‘George and I have already put feelers out to turn up Zelda’s supplier. Doubt it mattered what was in her magic handbag. I’m guessing it had all been doctored. We’ve been to the hooker’s place. Nothing there, either.’

  ‘Nothing? That can’t be right.’

  He made a face. ‘Yeah. Given what was on her, it’s a surprise. But it’s empty. Which suggests last night was the exception rather than the rule.’

  He answered my next question before I had the chance to ask it. ‘So, if it didn’t belong to her, where did the pharmacy she was packing come from? One helluva selection of recreational fun to not be seriously into it.’

  ‘I agree.’

  ‘Which means somebody gave it to her, probably last night. When we finish here, we’ll look at the security cameras upstairs. See who she talked to. What about her phone?’

  ‘We checked both her and Drake’s mobiles. As you’d expect, she had a lot of numbers in her directory. I’m having them traced but it won’t be quick.’

  ‘Okay, what about Drake?’

  ‘Missed calls earlier on.’

  ‘Who to?’

  Douglas hesitated, being gallant – he needn’t have bothered. I pressed him. ‘Who did he call, Mark?’

  Nina shuffled uncomfortably. I still didn’t understand the full extent of her involvement but, unlikely as it seemed given the age difference, guessed she’d sold the barrister the Butler’s Wharf flat and had a thing with him to seal the deal.

  ‘Mark, look at me. Who did he call?’

  ‘Nina.’

  ‘How many times?’

  ‘Three or four.’

  Nina said, ‘Yeah, he called me. I didn’t answer.’

  ‘Why not?’

  She stuck out a defiant chin. ‘He’s a letch.’

  That hadn’t stopped her before.

  ‘I wasn’t in the mood. Okay?’

  ‘Then it’s possible he came to LBC looking for you, and when you weren’t there, decided to try out his new card.’

  Douglas shifted the focus of the conversation. He set a plastic bag on the desk in front of me, the blade of the knife inside, even the handle, stained dark.

  ‘His paws are all over it.’

  ‘You’d expect them to be, it’s his flat.’

  ‘But not in her blood.’ He laid a memory stick on the desk and pushed it towards me. ‘The video. Fucking gruesome. Freddy Krueger eat your heart out. Some nice shots of Drake and Zelda side by side on the bed. Added to his fingerprints on the murder weapon, a jury would be hard pushed to reach any verdict other than that Algernon Drake brutally murdered a teenage prostitute in his flat. Like to see the silver-tongued barrister talk himself out of that one.’

  Seeing the knife, knowing the awful damage it had done, banished any lingering sense of doubt in the group, replacing it with a recognition of exactly what we were up against. I picked up the bag, intending to put it in the safe, and changed my mind when I saw the reaction round the room. Maybe it would be enough to put their differences on hold.

  Charley’s East Coast drawl dragged us back to the now. ‘Drake wasn’t the target. The gods were angry with him and put him in the wrong place at the wrong time. But anybody would’ve done.’

  ‘And you know this, how?’

  She killed the smirk starting on her face. ‘Haven’t you been listening? Nina just told us. If she’d been horny for Algernon he wouldn’t’ve been near LBC. She would’ve supplied everything he wanted. Done it before.’

  Nina took the bait just as she was meant to. ‘You fucking bitch!’

  I shut her down with a wave of my hand. If we didn’t stand together, there would be nothing left to defend.

  Charley laughed; her work was done.

  I said, ‘Cut it out, both of you – you’re starting to piss me off.’

  Douglas carried on. ‘She bummed a cigarette off another girl and went outside to smoke it. A guy talked to her. We’ll check the cameras inside and out. See if there was contact before the pavement.’

  This was a breakthrough – the first since the nightmare started.

  Charley said, ‘I’ve told the girls we got an anonymous tip one of them was doing some serious dealing. Zelda’s dropping out of sight makes it easy for them to draw their own conclusions.’

  Five minutes in and already my sister was behaving like she’d been doing this all her life. Perhaps she had. You didn’t lick it off the rocks; street smarts were learned.

  Charley had been around.

  We watched the security tape confirm the sequence, knowing how tragically it was destined to end. Algernon Drake ordered champagne in black-and-white, relaxed, sitting back as if he belonged. A girl joined him and they talked for a couple of minutes. When she left, another took her place. Algernon was choosy, obviously not willing to be rushed, until Zelda approached his table and the decision was made. They sat, heads close together, like the lovers they were never going to be: two hours later, he’d be in a psychotic episode and she’d be dead.

  Douglas fast-forwarded to her tapping the cigarettes off the Australian and leaving, his finger poised to run it on. I stopped him. ‘Let it play. See what happens.’

  At the top of the screen, a man we hadn’t been tracking slid off his seat at the bar and followed her. Douglas froze the frame and zoomed in: he looked to be in his mid-thirties, heavily built, with dark hair and thick eyebrows. If he’d paid his bill by credit card, we’d have a name. I wouldn’t hold my breath – these people were too professional to give themselves away so easily. What we were watching wasn’t some spontaneous interaction, it had been planned.

  I said, ‘Okay. Switch the tape.’

  Nina stated the obvious. ‘She’s meeting him.’

  Zelda walked up and down, her bag over her arm, glancing anxiously towards the front door, the cigarette in her hand unlit and forgotten. The stranger came through the door and they faced each other, him doing the talking, her doing the listening. The conversation was short. After less than a minute, he handed her something. She put it in her bag and went back inside.

  ‘Anybody recognise him?’

  Nobody did and we were back where we started.

  29

  George Ritchie hung back until the others had left and we were alone. I poured a whisky for myself and felt its fire burn my throat. It was time for some straight talking. ‘Mend your fences with Douglas, George. He isn’t the problem. The guy’s in a job you didn’t want, remember? Right now, he’s checking everybody on the books trying to find a connection. Believe me, you’re better off south of the river in the King Pot.’

  Ritchie’s expression gave nothing away, which told me I was on the money.

  He lied effortlessly. ‘No fences to mend. I’ll work with anybody, you know that. If he needs me, I won’t be hard to find.’

  He wasn’t being straight with me. Not the George Ritchie I’d known. Pus
hing it wouldn’t get me anywhere.

  ‘The drugs are likely a blind alley. Could’ve come from anywhere. But every thread has to be teased out.’ He nodded as if he agreed and I said, ‘Keep an eye on my sisters. Try to not let them see you. Interference doesn’t go down well, with Nina, especially.’

  Ritchie knew that already. At the door he turned. ‘Feels like it used to be simpler than it is now – or am I telling myself a load of horseshit?’

  ‘You’re getting old, George, that’s all.’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘Yeah. And I’m pleased to see it, thought it was just me.’

  The mobile rang out nine times – I counted – before she answered. I pictured her in her ‘office’ scanning the horizontal lines of red and black icons, making certain she hadn’t missed anything.

  ‘It’s Luke Glass.’

  Her voice was soft and smoky. ‘Not on with bad news, I hope.’

  ‘I’ll be straight with you, Bridie. We’ve had no problems since the hit on the club but there’s still stuff going down.’

  ‘Stuff like what?’

  She was fishing.

  ‘As far as this goes, we’re partners. You deserve to be told that whoever’s behind it hasn’t gone away. They’re still out there.’

  ‘And you’re warnin’ me.’

  I corrected her. ‘Warning, no. Let’s just say I’m apprising you of the situation. Whether you go ahead with our arrangement or pull out is your decision.’

  ‘It always was.’

  ‘I appreciate that.’

  ‘Except, that’s not how I do business. If I agree to do a thing, I do it. Are you ready to listen to my proposition?’

  ‘I’m not looking for a partner. I thought I’d made that clear.’

  ‘Oh, you did. But…’

  ‘But what, Bridie?’

  ‘That was then and this is now.’ She cut the call short. ‘You have a good day, Mr Glass.’

  I went upstairs, needing to clear my head and get a handle on the last ten hours; the cleaners had finished and the place was empty. I sat at the bar, close to where the stranger who’d followed Zelda outside had been, and surveyed the scene. Opening a club in the heart of London had always been risky, a huge financial commitment Nina had been against and still was. Ritchie hadn’t been a fan, either. I’d believed the opportunity was too big to turn down and gone with my instincts.

  Today, I wasn’t so sure.

  Bridie O’Shea was a tough old bird who wasn’t afraid of a fight – even one she could avoid. For the moment, she was onside. How long that would last was anybody’s guess. I liked her but her colleen-from-the-old-country routine was tired. Jonas Small and the Bishops wanted a piece of LBC. So did she and she made no bones about it.

  Her cash was due to arrive at seven. Meantime, Mark Douglas and George Ritchie were working to tag the guy Zelda had spoken to on the pavement, while Stanford would try to identify the source of her pharmacopoeia as soon as I could get it to him. I’d sent him the image of the guy and heard fear in his voice when he confirmed it was the same man he’d seen in the trees at the bottom of his garden.

  My mobile rang, startling me. And suddenly, the garrulous avuncular Jonas Small had become a different animal, direct, economical with the English language. He didn’t bother to introduce himself.

  ‘Any sign of my money?’

  Offering to stand Small his 200 K was a one-time thing. He’d picked the wrong moment to get heavy about it.

  ‘You know that’s not how it works, Jonas. It’s a process. I’ve got your money.’

  ‘You’ve got it. Why doesn’t that make me feel better?’

  George Ritchie’s stinging assessment of him flashed into my mind. ‘It’s here if you want to come for it.’

  He thought about the suggestion, though only for a second. ‘No. No, I won’t. We’ll meet.’

  ‘Fine, but it won’t be today. I’m busy.’

  He brushed my objection aside, almost as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘Aren’t we all, Lukie boy? Blackfriars Bridge in an hour.’

  The line died in my hand.

  Whatever Small had imagined the dynamic between us was, clearly, for him, it had altered. He dropped the elder-statesman-of-the-London-underworld pose, along with the pretence we had anything in common other than an ambition to make a shitload of money. I hadn’t forgotten how aggressive he’d been, implying doubt over the security of the cash I’d pledged to cover. There had to be a reason. His money wasn’t at risk and we both knew it. So why was he putting the grip on me all of a sudden?

  Mark Douglas found me in the office, on my knees in front of the safe, filling a green Harrods carrier bag with cash. He put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Luke, what’re you doing?’

  With all the shit that had been going on, my reply sounded crazy, even to me.

  ‘Delivering something.’

  ‘Deliv… You’re not serious. Our guys can do whatever needs doing.’

  ‘No, this one’s mine.’

  His fingers dug into me. ‘Don’t you trust me?’

  I turned my head and looked up at him. ‘It isn’t about trust. You’ve got enough on your plate, and besides… I want to handle this myself.’

  Concern and disappointment mixed on his face – he felt slighted and couldn’t hide it. ‘Where are you going? Let me drive you, at least.’

  ‘Blackfriars Bridge.’

  He swore softly to himself and paced the room. ‘Tell me what’s happened.’

  I stopped what I was doing long enough to put him in his place. ‘None of your concern. When we get there, drop me and keep going.’

  Douglas wasn’t happy. ‘You’re the boss, which means you shouldn’t be anywhere near this kind of stuff.’

  ‘On another day, you’d get no argument. This is different.’

  ‘Famous last words.’

  ‘Sometimes it can’t be avoided.’ I lifted the carrier bag and checked my watch. ‘Let’s go.’

  In the car, he didn’t speak until we reached Russell Square, then he said, ‘When this thing, whatever the hell it is, is over, you can have my resignation.’

  ‘Mark, listen.’

  He had nothing to lose and let me have both barrels. ‘No, you listen. I was bored out of my skull babysitting Vicki Messina and the rest of them. It was a cushy number. Nobody would describe what we do as that. So, there has to be...’

  He didn’t finish the sentence. I tried to reach him. ‘You’re taking this personally when it isn’t.’

  Douglas’s mouth closed and he breathed slowly through his nose. We made a right turn near Smithfield Market into Farringdon Street and overtook a blue Mondeo with a ‘Baby on Board’ sign in the rear window. His face was white with anger, the strength of his reaction surprising.

  I’d offended him. And not just professionally.

  At the bottom of the road, he pulled up at the Underground. As I was getting out, he saw Felix Corrigan and Vincent Finnegan waiting at the end of the bridge shaped like a pulpit, a reference to the Black Friars. His hands closing round the steering wheel, knuckles threatening to break the skin. I said, ‘I know these guys. Your team have enough to do. Don’t read more into this than there is.’

  Douglas didn’t acknowledge I’d spoken; he edged the car into the flow and didn’t look back.

  I crossed the road, dodging in and out of the traffic, keeping a tight grip on the bag. Felix and Finnegan were known quantities, guys who’d proved themselves in the past. George Ritchie hadn’t hesitated when I told him why I needed them. Mark Douglas was understandably pissed – I got that. Where I was going, I had to have complete faith in the men at my back. Small had been too confident. Too pushy. Too fucking sure of himself. Somehow, he’d got wind of the dead hooker and saw an opportunity. And he was just daft enough to try it on. The 200 K wasn’t a problem. At the end of the day, it was my life on the line, not anybody else’s.

  Felix asked what they were anxious to know. ‘What’s occurring?’

  I
raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s what we’re here to find out.’

  It was an uncomfortably warm afternoon, the air muggy. In an angry sky, dark clouds, heavy with rain, melded together: a storm was coming – it fitted my mood to a tee.

  Traffic poured across Blackfriars in a never-ending stop-start procession. On the far side, the distinctive figure of Jonas Small and two of his men watched us, alert, tooled-up and ready to react. Felix and Vincent returned their hard stares but stayed where they were. I walked towards the middle of the bridge, Small did the same from his end, like Cold War spies being exchanged in some remote Polish forest in the pages of a John le Carré book.

  When we’d met in Borough Market, I hadn’t noticed his arms and legs – thin and too long for his body. Today, the king of comedy three-piece suit he’d worn the last two times had been abandoned in favour of a brown corduroy jacket with leather patches on the elbows, a lime-green shirt, and a maroon waistcoat. With his gangly stride, from this distance he looked like a well-dressed stick insect on his way to the Ugly Bug Ball.

  People hurried past in both directions unaware the bag bouncing off my thigh contained more money than some of them made in a decade. But Small knew. And as he got nearer, his mouth spread in his trademark wolf-grin, laughing at me.

  I’d told him I was too busy, yet here I was.

  He saw that as a win. By his reckoning, the first of many.

  Wrong, Jonas.

  Before he could speak, I yanked his lapels and threw him against the pink-and-white wall that made the bridge one of the prettiest in the city. Surprise darted in his eyes – whatever he’d expected, it wasn’t this.

  ‘Woah! Woah! Take it easy, Lukie boy.’

  I tightened my hold, forcing him over the low-lying parapet, until the only things stopping him from falling were my fingers and his tailor. Up close, his breath smelled of stale cigarette smoke and there were broken red veins in the whites of his eyes. His fob watch had slipped out of the waistcoat pocket and dangled on the end of its chain. The timepiece had sentimental value: it reminded him how much he hated the man who’d sired him. Losing it would be a shame.