To Die For Read online

‘Why was Simpson killed?’

  ‘I don’t know. Scared, maybe, lost his bottle. I didn’t have anything to do with it.’

  ‘Why did Cole want his own place knocked off? Insurance job?’

  ‘I dunno. Yeah, probably. My guess.’

  He reached a hand out for the bottle of vodka, pulled it to him and took a swig, coughing. I took the bottle and tossed it away. He watched the bottle smash into the wall.

  ‘Why hasn’t Cole come for me already?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘We did the job four days ago.’

  ‘Maybe... maybe he hasn’t made the connection.’

  Was it possible that Cole hadn’t joined the dots as Beckett had planned? Maybe Cole realized Beckett was behind the double-cross. Maybe Cole had men out looking for me at that moment.

  Kendall sat up.

  ‘I’ll clear it with Cole,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell him you weren’t part of it. I’ll tell him it was Beckett.’

  ‘Where is Beckett?’

  ‘How the fuck should I know? He’s done a bunk, stitched me up. Walsh and Jenson too. Cunts have disappeared.’

  It would’ve surprised me if Kendall had known. He’d served his purpose, why would Beckett let him in on his hiding place?

  ‘I been trying to find them,’ he said. ‘Give me some time. I’ll get them; you’ll get clear; we’ll sort it with Cole.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘How have you been trying to find them?’

  ‘I’ve got a phone number,’ he said. He pointed to a desk in the bay of the living-room window. ‘In the top drawer.’

  I stood and turned to the desk. It was a mistake. Kendall leaped to his feet. He was quick, moved by desperation. I thrust my arm out and grabbed a handful of his hair, ripping it from its roots, wrenching him back, spinning him around. He screamed, his face contorted by fear and shock and pain. I slammed my fist into his face. I heard the crunch of cartilage as his nose shattered. His head snapped back with a crack. He fell to the floor, spasming, gurgling blood from his ruined face. His body jolted; his hands grasped at his face, clawed at the carpet. He rolled and tried to get to his knees but collapsed. His breathing became strained; his movements stopped.

  When I knew he was dead, I walked over to the desk. I opened the drawer, riffled through the papers and photographs. There was nothing. I wiped the desk clean. I searched the rest of the house. I found stashes of cash, about a thousand total. I found Kendall’s mobile phone in one of the suitcases. I waited for Kendall’s wife to come round so that I could question her. After a while, when she still hadn’t moved, I checked on her and found that she’d stopped breathing and was going cold. She’d probably been dead a half-hour or so.

  Somewhere, maybe, Kendall would have documents, a diary, an address book, that would help me find Beckett. I ripped the place apart. There were bills, photographs, letters, but no part of his business life was here, no sign that he had men on his payroll who robbed banks and extorted money with menaces and collected debts with sledgehammers. Maybe his wife had made him separate his lives, or maybe here Kendall could pretend to himself that he was just an ordinary upstanding citizen. I searched the garage, and through the cars. Nothing. I remembered that Kendall had once mentioned an office, but I didn’t know where it was.

  I flicked Kendall’s mobile phone on and fiddled about with it until I found the address book. I scrolled through until I found ‘Beckett, J.’ There were two numbers, one of them for a mobile. I tried the number, there was no service. I made a note of the other number, then scrolled through the rest of Kendall’s address book, looking for a Walsh, a Simpson, a Jenson. I couldn’t find anything. I hadn’t expected to; Beckett was in charge. I found a telephone directory, flipped through to the Becketts and ran my finger down the list looking for a match with the phone number I had. There was none. I called directory enquiries and asked for the address of a J. Beckett. There were lots of J. Becketts, the operator said. I gave her the phone number I had. She couldn’t help me. I used Kendall’s landline, hitting 141 first to hide my number, and dialled Beckett’s home phone.

  ‘Yeah?’ said a man’s voice. The voice was not Beckett’s.

  ‘Is John there?’ I said.

  ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘A friend of his.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘He’s not here right now. I’m trying to find him myself, you wouldn’t – ’

  I dropped the receiver. One of Cole’s men, probably. I looked around the room trying to find something solid. I was used to action, quick sometimes, slow at others. Now I didn’t know what to do. Uncertainty was like an itch I couldn’t reach.

  Kendall and his wife were on the floor in front of me, crumpled like rubbish. I looked at them for a moment before I realized the obvious: I hadn’t searched their bodies. I tried the woman first, turning her over with my foot. Her arm flapped out across the floor as her body rolled. The fat on her neck wobbled. She wore a cotton dress, too thin to hide anything except the wrinkles of her skin, too thin even to hide the outline of her underwear, which pushed through the fabric and made her seem stupid, even in death. I’d met her once when Kendall had stopped off at the gym to hand me some money. That had been a long time ago, but I remembered she was snooty, deliberately turning away from me when Kendall had introduced her.

  I hadn’t meant to kill her. She’d panicked and tried to run from the house and I’d had no choice but to slap her. She’d hit the ground heavily, but I didn’t think my blow had killed her. Maybe she’d had a weak heart or something. Now, in death, all that thick make-up, all those gold bangles made her life look like a waste of fucking time.

  It was in Kendall’s rear trouser pocket that I found the scrap of paper. On it, scrawled in Kendall’s hand, was a list of names. None I recognized. All the names had been crossed out except the last: ‘R. Martin’. It didn’t mean anything to me. Martin was a common name. I found nothing else on him.

  I searched the house again, trying to guess where Kendall would hide his important information. If I hadn’t been in the front bedroom, I would’ve missed the headlights as they pulled into the driveway. I dumped the drawer I was holding and went to the window. Below me, a black Mercedes had pulled to a stop behind Kendall’s car, blocking it. Three men slipped out of the car. One of the men looked up and I saw a long, thin, white face stare at me. The small dark eyes and small mouth and sharp cheekbones gave it a mask-like appearance. It was a delicate-looking face, pretty in a way. It belonged to a man I knew, and there was nothing pretty about him. I knew him from years back. His name was Kenny Paget. Back then he’d worked for a man called Frank Marriot, a pimp and pornographer, one of the biggest in London. Paget had been his hatchet man. Our paths had crossed a couple of times. What the fuck was he doing here? I didn’t move. He kept looking and then turned his face away. He hadn’t seen me in the darkened room. He said something to the other men. The three of them fanned out, two going to the front door, one around the left side. The doorbell rang.

  By the time I’d got into the kitchen, the third man was at the door, trying the handle. I’d left my car up the road, and I’d left my guns in the car. That was stupid of me. I’d been reckless, impatient to smash Kendall.

  Keeping in the shadows at the rear of the house, I moved through to the dining room. Here, French windows led to the patio. When I heard the smash of glass in the kitchen, I slipped the catch on the French windows and eased them open enough to slide through. I closed them, moved around to the side of the house and vaulted over the fence into Kendall’s neighbour’s garden. Crouching, I moved along the fence, over the soft earth, until I came to the street. Behind me, I heard Kendall’s front door open.

  ‘He’s dead,’ a man said. ‘The place has been searched.’

  When I heard the door close, I stood up slowly. Paget and his men had gone inside the house. I walked to my car.

  I drove aimlessly, sliding around the streets, not aware of where I
was going. Things were closing in on me. If I wasn’t wanted by Cole and the law yet, I soon would be. My name was shit. I’d just killed the man who was my link with the only kind of work I could do these days. Most of all, my reputation was being shot to hell. That mattered.

  I’d never trusted Kendall, but I should’ve been more careful. I’d let my guard down. Kendall was stupid enough to fuck with me. And I was stupid enough to let him.

  I pulled the car over, fished Kendall’s mobile phone from my pocket and punched in King’s number.

  ‘The fuck is this?’ he said, his voice still croaky from sleep.

  ‘Joe.’

  ‘Shit. Hold on.’

  I heard the sound of King’s wife asking who it was, and King telling her to go back to sleep. I heard the sound of King getting out of bed, a door closing. I kept my eyes on the road, and a hand on my gun. The street was deserted. The sound of any vehicle approaching would give me clear warning. I was jittery. I didn’t like being jittery – it made me jittery.

  ‘What is it?’ King said.

  ‘I need to find someone.’

  ‘What am I, the police?’

  ‘Beckett’s gone. I need to find him.’

  He let out a laugh.

  ‘Yeah? Well, good luck.’

  ‘You won’t help me?’

  ‘What’s this about, Joe?’

  ‘He’s taken Cole’s money.’

  ‘Leaving you to take the blame?’

  ‘Will you help me or not?’

  ‘If Beckett’s gone to ground, I won’t find him. If anyone knows, they won’t tell me.’

  ‘They’ll tell me.’

  ‘Okay, sure, you can make them. But then you’d have to kill them, otherwise they’ll just call Beckett and he’ll move.’

  ‘I don’t mind killing them.’

  ‘No, I’m sure you don’t. But you’ll have a shit load of heat on you.’

  I had enough heat on me. What was a little more?

  ‘Who might know?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know Beckett, never liked the cunt.’

  ‘You know some people. They know people. Call them up, ask them.’

  There was a pause. When King spoke again his voice was quieter. ‘I could do that, but I’m not going to. If I start asking questions, it’s going to get back to Cole. He’s going to want to know what my involvement is. Sorry, Joe, that shit’s too heavy for me. Don’t you think Cole is going to know who to ask? If he hasn’t found Beckett, I won’t be able to.’

  He was right, of course.

  ‘Give me a name,’ I said. ‘They won’t know it was from you. If I don’t find Beckett, I’m finished.’

  There was silence down the line. He was thinking it through. His loyalty was split. He knew me, and I was known as a good man to work with, reliable. And he hated Beckett. I was pushing him. I had no choice. After a few seconds, he said, ‘Go to ground, Joe. Quit while you’re still alive.’

  It was no good. King wasn’t sentimental about these things. I wouldn’t have been. I was about to hang up when I thought of something.

  ‘Do you know someone called Martin?’ I said. ‘Initial R.’

  ‘Martin,’ King said. ‘Name rings a bell. Ray Martin. An old face, I think.’

  ‘Why would Kendall want to find him?’

  ‘Fuck should I know? Ask Kendall.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You don’t want to know.’

  There was another pause.

  ‘Fuck. You’re really in it, know that?’

  ‘Just tell me where I can find this Martin.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Tell me someone who might. Your name’ll be out of it.’

  He sighed and muttered something. Finally he said, ‘Know Jim Bowker?’

  Bowker. I knew him. ‘Remember Paget?’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ King said slowly.

  ‘I saw him tonight. At Kendall’s.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘He work for Marriot still?’

  ‘Not any more. Got a better offer. Works for Cole. Didn’t you know?’

  ‘No. Since when?’

  ‘Since Marriot got banged up. Paget switched then. Go to ground, Joe. If Paget’s after you, you’re in trouble.’

  6

  Bowker was one of the old sort who’d worked in London in the seventies when the law was as bent as the thieves and you only had to fall out of your car with a sawn-off to net fifty grand. He’d done a couple of long stretches in Wandsworth and the Scrubs, and when they’d finally kicked him out he found that his time had gone, his profession had changed and nobody gave a fuck what he’d done twenty years ago. I hadn’t seen him for years, but I remembered him.

  I found him in the Connaught Arms club, a snooker place on the Holloway Road. It was an old haunt of mine. I’d last been there about six years before, when I’d worked nearby.

  It was members only and I had a bit of trouble getting in, until I fed the bloke on the counter a fifty. He was happy then. Giving him money meant I wasn’t law. That was all he cared about. That and the fifty notes.

  Upstairs was a large open room, dim and dusty, with a long bar down one side, a handful of tables with mixed chairs and stools, and a dozen or so shabby snooker tables filling the middle of the floor. It was late, but this place had never shut as far as I knew. They served alcohol until the early hours and, because of the bloke downstairs in reception, they had a heads-up on any law, so they let their punters smoke if they wanted to. Smoking wasn’t all that went on there. At one of the tables a group of young black men were smoking spliffs, chatting and texting on their mobiles. Yardie-connected, probably. Small-time, though. During the days, the club ran a book. They had a few TVs behind the bar and punters would sit and drink and blow their money on long shots at Goodwood or Haydock Park or wherever, and always it was the gambling, not the winning or the chance to win, but the gambling itself that they sucked up and fed on, because that told them they were still alive.

  Bowker was a gambler, which was how I happened to know him. It was his gambling that got him in stir. He’d become desperate a few times too many. He was one of those people who always won small and lost big. That’s why King had suggested him, I suppose. He’d spill anything for anyone if you dangled a score in front of his face. Everyone knew he was a grass but for some reason nobody cared, though they made damned sure they didn’t talk business around him.

  I saw him in the far corner, leaning over a table, cue in one hand, fag in the other. I walked towards him. He was a small man and his three-piece suit was a couple of sizes too big. He seemed to have shrunk since I’d last seen him. Something was killing him: the fags, the booze, the constant losing. He still tried to keep the Teddy-boy quiff he’d had as a young man, but his hair was too thin, and the black sheen it had was too black and just made his face look older and paler.

  He lined up the blue with a corner pocket. He put the fag in his mouth, leaned over, cued up and smacked the cue ball. The blue missed the pocket by half a foot and bounced into the reds, scattering them everywhere. He dragged on the fag, coughed a lung up and walked around to line up another shot. He didn’t seem to mind that he’d missed.

  He didn’t see me until I was at the table. When he did see me he didn’t react, and I thought that was strange. I should’ve realized.

  ‘Joe,’ he said. ‘Been a while.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Game?’

  ‘No.’

  He bent over as far as he could and hit the cue ball into a pack of reds. One of the reds went in the centre pocket.

  ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ he said, moving around the table and aiming along the cue at a long black. ‘People are looking for you.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  I watched the cue. It was shaking. I remembered when I’d played poker with him. He would have been good, if it hadn’t been for the shakes he got. He missed the black and stood up. He drew on h
is cigarette and let the smoke out in a sigh. He took a gulp from a glass of Guinness he had on the small table. Sweat stuck to his upper lip and he was taking a while doing things and I knew he was terrified.

  ‘Really, I’m serious, people could be here pronto.’

  ‘Nobody knows me here, not any more. Except you.’

  ‘Sure about that?’

  ‘I’ll assume it.’

  He looked at me fully for the first time. His face had a yellowish colour that I hadn’t noticed in the dimness. His eyes were watery, and the skin around them sagged so that you could see the blood vessels below the eyeballs. His skin was like his suit, two sizes too big.

  He said, ‘Don’t worry about me, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m too old to make enemies. What can I do? You know I can’t hardly leave the flat now. My wife, her legs are all swelled up so she don’t go out. So I stay in, keep her company. Don’t even get to the bookies any more. Can’t afford it.’ He bent over the table again, lining up another failed shot. ‘Coming here is all I can do to get away,’ he said. ‘It’s cheap.’

  When he’d finished his sob story, I took a couple of hundred from my pocket and laid the notes on the green baize, right in front of his nose. He gathered the money without straightening up.

  ‘Ray Martin,’ I said.

  ‘Martin? What for?’

  ‘I need to speak to him.’

  He jerked the cue forward and the white went bouncing around. I didn’t know which ball Bowker was aiming at. I don’t think he knew. Anyway, he missed. He stood up and slid the cue on to the table surface.

  ‘You mean speak to? Or question?’

  ‘Speak to.’

  ‘Because he’s an old mate and I couldn’t land him in it.’

  ‘You haven’t got any old mates.’

  ‘Nevertheless.’

  ‘I’m not looking for aggro with him.’

  He nodded and looked at his feet for a moment, pretending to weigh up whether to say anything, like he was caught in a moral dilemma. I let him pretend. We both knew he was going to tell me.

  ‘Okay. You say he won’t get in no trouble over this. I’ll take your word for it. I know him. Well, I knew him. Haven’t seen him for years. Fifteen at least. He did a stretch, then went straight.’