Bad Blood (37 page)

It was from the custody centre that Calter rang Savage at six-thirty the next morning to tell her the girl was saying nothing and was demanding to leave forthwith. Savage told Calter to stop her from leaving and then she rolled over and tried to get back to sleep.

Three hours later she turned up at Major Crimes to find Calter arguing with Enders. The only way Calter had been able to prevent Vanessa Liston from doing a runner was to arrest her on a charge of theft and criminal damage. Enders seemed to be finding the whole thing hilarious.

‘Correct me if I am wrong, ma’am,’ Enders said, laughing, ‘but I thought we were hoping to get her on our side.’

‘Arresting her was the only thing I could think of,’ Calter said. ‘I didn’t know the full facts of the situation since I had been dragged from my bed at six o’clock.’

‘Children!’ Savage said. ‘Calm down. I’m sorry, Jane. You were put in an invidious position, which was partly my fault. The scene became confused very quickly and there were so many people and agencies involved that we lost track of Vanessa. To be honest, by the time I got my boat back to the marina I was suffering from mild hypothermia. Bob Stephens took me home and I collapsed into bed. Pete made me a cocoa but one sip was enough to send me to sleep.’

‘Not to worry, ma’am. Sorry I boobed.’

‘You did fine. Now, I want the girl brought from the custody centre to Crownhill. We’ll conduct the interview in a more informal setting and see if we can’t get back into her good books.’

‘Ha!’ Enders said. ‘She was trapped on the boat, nearly drowns and is then arrested. This I have to see!’

‘No, I’ve got a job for you.’ Savage glanced out of the window at the drizzle. ‘You are going to take a trip around the Rame Peninsula. I want to find out what happened to the two guys in the dinghy and the best way to do that is to knock on a few doors and find out if somebody heard something. Rame is a quiet part of the world, so a car coming down a lane late at night would be remembered. Off you go.’

‘Wrap up warm,’ Calter said and blew him a kiss as Enders groaned and loped off.

By the time Vanessa Liston had been fetched from the main station and brought to Major Crimes things hadn’t become much clearer. Kenny Fallon’s solicitor had called the police to say he’d heard some of Mr Fallon’s property had been recovered and then subsequently damaged by the police. A claim for damages was being drawn up and would be with them later.

Hardin, luckily, was absent due to the visit of the Chief Constable. He was accompanying him on various duties around the city so he’d not had a chance to comment on the debacle.

Savage elected to interview the girl in her office, thinking an informal setting would work best. Calter brought her in.

‘I suppose I ought to thank you,’ Vanessa said, running her fingers through her matted blonde hair. ‘For last night.’

‘Yes, but Inspector Nigel Frey is the one you really need to thank.’ Savage poured a cup of coffee and pushed a tray of cherry bakewells across at the girl. ‘He risked his life to get you out of there.’

‘Thanks. Mr Kipling. My favourite.’ Vanessa took a cake and mumbled through crumbling pastry and white icing. ‘I mean thanks for what you did, not the cake.’

‘That’s OK,’ Savage said, laughing. ‘It’s our job. Providing cakes too.’

Vanessa smiled and then carried on eating before taking a slurp of coffee. ‘It was so cold in the water last night. When they took me to the lifeboat place they had to put a fan heater on me to stop the shivering.’

‘You’re OK now. So take your time and tell me what happened. From the top.’

‘Everything?’ Vanessa reached out again and took the cake.

‘Yes.’

‘Only …’ The girl moved the cake to her mouth and then paused. She turned to look at Calter and then back at Savage. ‘Some of it’s private. I’d prefer to speak to you alone.’

Savage waved at Calter to leave and the DC got up and left the room, glancing back over her shoulder as she closed the door, scepticism written all over her face.

‘So?’ Savage said.

‘I messaged you, didn’t I? But you never turned up. They’d been to the pub in Cawsand and when I saw them coming back I didn’t know what the fuck to do so I pulled a hose off one of the seacocks and opened it. Then I sent a Mayday, only I didn’t realise how fast the water was coming in so I abandoned the message halfway through.’

‘What were you doing in the cabin?’

‘Looking for my mobile to try and phone you.’ Vanessa laughed. ‘As if that bloody mattered. Something must have fallen against the door when the boat lurched over and I couldn’t get it open.’

‘OK. Let’s go back a bit. Why did you sink the boat?’

‘You know why.’

‘I don’t, Vanessa. You’ll need to explain it to me.’

‘Because of Kenny Fallon and Alec Jackman. You were supposed to bloody catch them. You told me Fallon killed my dad. That’s why I did it. For my mum too. You know, the drugs and everything.’

‘Vanessa, I didn’t say they killed your dad. I said they were bad people.’

‘You said I had to help you undercover, sort of like Jason Bourne. You told me you’d arrest them. But you never arrived, so I had to sink the boat to stop them getting away.’

‘Shit, I …’ Savage shook her head. ‘And the pickup?’

‘What pickup?’

‘You were there to pilot the boat out into the Channel, weren’t you? Fallon and Jackman know nothing about boats, but you do. You were going to take them offshore so they could find a package dropped overboard from a ship.’

‘Huh?’

‘Look, Vanessa, don’t muck around. You are in serious trouble. Just tell me the truth. Fallon asked you to send the message to me earlier. This whole lark was some sort of set-up wasn’t it?’

‘You know what? I feel bad about this because I like you and well … you did rescue me.’

‘Then please tell me truthfully what happened tonight. What was
supposed
to happen tonight.’

‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, but I’ve got a message from Kenny. He said you were his friend and were looking out for him. That you’d make sure whatever story I told you would be believed.’ Vanessa took another bite of the cake and smiled. ‘That’s true, isn’t it?’

Jackman had arrived home in the small hours. He climbed out of his wet clothes and collapsed into bed alongside his wife. Slept in the next morning. Knackered.

He woke to a noise from downstairs. The dog howling, a cry Jackman sometimes heard in the night when the animal wanted to go outside. He reached out an arm for Gill, realising as he found the bed empty that she’d have long gone. Off to a friend, no doubt. Or a spot of retail therapy followed by a session at a nail bar. When your brother had died a violent death, getting your nails done by a brainless girl who’d be rabbiting on about the latest
X Factor
boy band would be all you’d need to cheer you up.

Jackman shook his head and wished he was at the flat with Vanessa. Imagined her body beneath him. Then he rolled over and got out of bed, padded naked out of the room and went to find the dog. If the thing had shat on the carpet he’d give it a right bollocking. Not that the task would be easy: Maxi was fifty kilograms of Pyrenean Mountain dog. The type of animal nobody would argue with. Not if they knew what was good for them. The dog had taken down a burglar once, mauling the young lad in the kitchen. Jackman had spent five minutes persuading the dog to let go of the boy’s leg.

When he reached the top of the stairs and peered down he saw that the fucker
had
made a mess. There was something down on the half landing, something red-brown.

Bugger. Gill would go apeshit. New nails or not.

Still naked, Jackman descended, stopping a couple of stairs above the landing. A smear of red swirled across the white carpet to a pile of something like sausages.

Intestines
.

Jackman frowned, wondering if the dog had somehow got hold of a rabbit or a cat.

‘Stuey’s got a way with a knife. But you’d remember that, of course.’

A squat man with a fat round head beamed up from the floor below. The smile revealed a gold tooth front centre. He pointed down to a massive bundle of fur lying at his feet. A puddle of red oozed across the parquet and around the man’s feet.

‘Ricky, no!’ Jackman stepped back and then slipped over, scrabbling on the stairs before managing to get to his feet and run up them, to where a tall, thin man with a face which had the complexion of fresh feta cheese stood on the top landing.

Jackman looked down to his stomach where the silver of a blade flashed, a tiny nick drawing a globule of blood. The blade moved down and caressed the top of his groin, the tip twisting in among his pubic hair.

‘He’s got some nice tackle, Ricky. Tasty. Look good on a plate with a couple of tatties.’

‘Not now, Stuey,’ Budgeon said, wiping the sole of his foot on the dog and picking up an Adidas holdall at his feet. ‘We don’t want Alec to get the wrong idea. We’re all friends now. No bad feelings.’

‘Look, Ricky,’ Jackman said. ‘Back then it was Kenny’s idea. He set you up. You know that. I was against it, but Kenny insisted, wouldn’t listen to reason.’

‘Yeah, sure, Mr Sneaky Sneak.’ Budgeon came up the stairs and looked at Chaffe. ‘Get him in the bedroom, Stuart. We’ll sort it out in there.’

Chaffe gestured with the knife, making a flicking motion. Jackman shrugged and walked down the corridor to the master bedroom. When he got there he reached out for his dressing gown which lay on a chair.

‘No need for that,’ Chaffe said. ‘Like Ricky said, we’re all friends now. No need to cover up.’

‘Lie on the bed,’ Budgeon said, dropping the holdall down and unzipping it. He took something from the bag and threw it across to Chaffe. ‘Para cord, Stuey. Lovely bit of kit. Should do to keep Alec still while we have a little talk.’

Chaffe pushed Jackman towards the bed, a final shove sending him sprawling on top of the duvet. Then Chaffe was unwinding the cord and wrapping some of it round Jackman’s legs, pulling it tight and fastening it somewhere beneath the bedframe.

‘Arms now, Stuey,’ Budgeon said. ‘One each side.’

Chaffe pulled off a length of cord and flicked the knife a couple of times. He pointed the knife at Jackman and made him lie flat. Then he tied a loop around each wrist, binding tight and yanking Jackman’s arms in turn so that one was tied to each side at the head of the bed.

Budgeon took a couple of things from the bag and they clumped to the floor. He removed his leather jacket and put it on a chair. Faded tattoos rippled on exposed biceps, and a grubby white t-shirt strained over a muscled torso.

‘Now then, Alec.’ Budgeon’s squat face sneered as he came close, looking as if it had been distorted by a funfair mirror. ‘We just need the answer to a simple question. There’s no phone-a-friend, no fifty-fifty, so think carefully before you reply.’

‘Ricky, I told you—’

‘Shut it. Just listen.’ Budgeon moved away again and bent over something on the floor as he spoke. ‘Where are the drugs, Alec?’

‘Don’t you watch the news? The boat sank. We never got to make the pickup. They’re in the middle of the English Channel.’

‘Wrong answer.’

‘Ricky! Didn’t you hear me? We didn’t get the drugs. Honest.’

‘Honest?’ Budgeon laughed. ‘The same type of honest that sent me up to Bristol to get a bullet in my head? I know Kenny, he ain’t going to leave several million quids’ worth of charlie to the seagulls. The whole thing was a ploy. Kenny’s little joke to fool the cops.’

‘No, Rick, it’s the truth.’

‘Ricky?’ Chaffe said, waving the knife and grinning. ‘Can I have a go at his meat and two veg now?’

‘No,’ Budgeon said. ‘Go downstairs and keep watch. Things might be about to get a little noisy up here.’

‘Fuck it!’ Chaffe spat at Jackman and then stomped out of the room.

Budgeon was rustling inside a large plastic bag, pulling something out, placing it on the dressing table and then fiddling with some packaging. Then he began to whistle a flat, tuneless song that Jackman vaguely recognised.

‘Orange, Alec, orange.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Companies like the colour orange.’ The packaging was orange. An orange cardboard box with a picture on the front, the product obscured by a big yellow sales sticker promising fifty per cent off. ‘Sainsbury’s, Orange phones, easyJet, B&Q, Nickelodeon. Hell, I saw an advert for Amazon the other day. Do you have any idea what colour their logo is?’

‘No.’ Jackman tilted his head, trying to make out what Budgeon was unpacking from the box. Something with a cable and a plug.

‘Fucking orange!’ Budgeon undid a couple of ties and discarded a piece of cardboard.

The tuneless whistling had become more melodic. Jackman tried to place it. Some piece of music from a film he’d seen. An old film with gangsters and a robbery gone wrong. What the hell was the movie called?

‘Anyway, as long as something works I don’t give a shit what the colour is. Colours are for women and poofs. Know what I am saying?’ The grin again as Budgeon pulled out an extension lead from the holdall and began to uncoil it, plugging one end into a socket near the dressing table and bringing the other end over to the bed. The whistle had gained in intensity, the tune becoming more familiar.

‘What are you … doing?’ Jackman squirmed, felt his bowels loosen, a piece of crap slip out, the excrement moving beneath him as he struggled. He shivered as some weird spasm went up through his body, ending with a quiver of his lips.

‘OK, one more time. I’ll say the words slowly so you can understand. Where … are … the … drugs?’

‘I …’ Jackman closed his eyes for a moment. Heard Budgeon whistle again. The tune, he had the name now: ‘Stuck in the Middle with You’. The film:
Reservoir Dogs
. Jesus! Jackman opened his eyes and screamed. ‘Esbjerg! Esbjerg! That’s where the drugs have gone.’

‘Where the hell is that then?’

‘Sweden. Norway. Fuck, I don’t know, but they’re coming into Harwich and then down here.’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know. Kenny never told me. One of his lock-ups or rental properties probably. You’re right, the whole boat thing was a set-up to fool you and the pigs.’