Nothing but Trouble (50 page)

Jess let go of his arm. ‘So what are you standing around here for? Get over to Chelsea and start persuading.’

Mac raised his eyes to the heavens and headed for the door.

After he’d gone, Jess turned to look at Lorna and Warren. ‘Do you think he’ll manage it?’

‘Sure he will,’ Warren said. ‘Harry’s his business partner. He doesn’t want to waste time visiting him in jail when he could
be bunking off to play a sneaky round of golf.’

‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,’ Lorna said as she returned to the reception area.

Jess paced over to the window and back again. It could be hours before they heard anything. What if Rafferty didn’t play ball?
What if he was too scared of Ray Stagg to give evidence against him? She went back to the window and gazed down on the street.
People were going about their business like there was nothing wrong: shopping, waiting for buses, nipping into the pub for
a quick one. Meanwhile, Harry was staring down the barrel of a gun, wondering if he was going to spend the next fifteen years
behind bars. She started pacing again.

‘Can you stop doing that,’ Warren said. ‘You’re making me nervous.’

‘Sorry,’ she said, pulling out a chair and sitting down beside him.

Warren handed her a sheet of paper. ‘Here, take a look at this.’

‘What is it?’

‘A copy of Aimee Locke’s birth certificate.’

Jess quickly scanned through the details. Born in Kellston twenty-nine years ago on 4 October. Mother: Karen Sage (née Lester).
Father: David Sage. She glanced up at Warren. ‘What am I looking for exactly?’

‘It’s the father who’s interesting.’

‘Father’s occupation: bookmaker,’ she read out. ‘So he was a bookie. What’s interesting about that?’

‘Because it’s not the truth. Far from it in fact. Kieran Swann ran a PNC check for us earlier. It seems our Mr Sage has quite
a colourful past. He used to work for Lennie Blackwood.’

Jess shook her head. ‘Never heard of him.’

‘Before your time, hun. Before mine, come to that. Lennie was a south London gangster with a short fuse. Nasty piece of work
by all accounts. Got his head blown off over twenty years ago.’

‘So Sage was a villain too.’

‘More than that. He was Lennie’s disposal man.’

Jess looked at him. ‘Does that mean what I think it means?’

‘Yeah, Sage was Lennie’s personal hit man, and very good at it he was too. He’s still wanted on four counts of murder, and
they’re just the ones the cops know about. He disappeared back in the mid-eighties and hasn’t been heard of since. Rumour
had it he was swimming with the fishes, but maybe the rumours were wrong.’

Jess thought back to her conversation with James Harley-Cunningham. ‘Which could explain the row between Aimee
Locke and Stagg. Maybe he wasn’t too keen on the idea of using Sage.’

‘Or maybe he wasn’t that keen on bumping off her husband at all. I mean, Ray Stagg’s a villain, we all know that, but he’s
a damned careful one. You get involved in something like this and the law’s bound to come sniffing round.’

‘Yeah, well I’m sure the lovely Aimee can be very persuasive.’ She dropped the certificate back on the desk. ‘But we can’t
prove anything, can we? It’s just conjecture.’

Warren shifted in his seat, as incapable as Jess of staying still. Frustration was biting at them both. ‘Except who better
to get rid of an unwanted spouse than a true professional. Sage fits the bill perfectly. No mistakes, no botch-ups, satisfaction
guaranteed. And with the added bonus of him being the one man who’s never going to grass her up.’

‘God, that’s a weird thought.’ Jess felt a thin shiver travel down her spine. ‘Can you imagine it? Getting your dad to murder
your husband.’

‘Maybe it was payback time.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, if he did just disappear all those years ago, maybe she figures he owes her.’

‘One hell of a bill,’ she murmured.

Warren picked up a pen and tapped it against the desk. ‘Anyway, conjecture or not, it’s something else to throw at the cops.
Anything that might cast doubt on Harry’s guilt has to be useful.’

Jess glanced at her watch, hoping that the traffic wasn’t too bad and that Mac would make it to Chelsea before Raffles melted
into the crowd. ‘If this Rafferty does come clean about being paid by Stagg, do you think they’ll let Harry go?’

‘Hopefully,’ Warren said. ‘But you can never tell with that bloody lot.’

‘You don’t sound too enamoured of the boys in blue.’

Warren pulled a face. ‘Really, what gave it away?’

‘But you work with two ex-cops.’

‘The clue’s in the
ex,’
he said. Then he grinned at her and heaved out a sigh. ‘Oh, don’t mind me. I’m just sounding off.’

Lorna put her head round the door. ‘That’s not all you’ll be doing if you don’t get a shift on. You’re due at the Turner surveillance
in less than fifteen minutes.’

‘Christ,’ he said, shooting up out of the chair. ‘Is that the time?’

‘And don’t worry,’ Lorna said. ‘I’ll give you a call as soon as we get any news.’

Warren laid a hand on Jess’s shoulder as he passed. ‘Stay cool, babe,’ he said. ‘In a few hours’ time this whole nightmare
could be over.’

Or just beginning, she thought. If Rafferty didn’t come good, Harry would be charged with murder.

Harry sat in the holding cell with his head buried in his hands. How had it come to this? No matter which way he turned, no
matter how hard he struggled, he could see no escape from the intricate web of guilt into which he’d been drawn. And what
made it worse was the knowledge that he’d been the master of his own downfall. He had stepped willingly into the trap laid
by Aimee Locke, and now he was going to pay the ultimate price.
Will you walk into my parlour? said the Spider to the Fly.
And like an idiot he had done exactly that.

‘Bloody fool!’ he muttered.

Why had he gone to that goddamn house? It was a decision that would haunt him for the rest of his life. His future thrown
away in a moment of recklessness. Anger merged with his shame and humiliation. He’d been photographed, fingerprinted and had
a DNA sample taken. His name was chalked on the board outside the cell. He was no longer Harry Lind, ex-cop, private detective.
He was defined now only by his alleged crime:
Murder.

Racking his brains, he tried to think of anything, anyone
who could help him. He replayed the events of the past week, rolling through the visit to Adriano’s, to the casino, to the
conversation on the Green. A week, that was all it had been, since the man who called himself Martin Locke had walked into
the office. Seven days before his life had begun to disintegrate.

It was hours now since his last interview. He was expecting the door to be unlocked at any moment, for the charges to be laid
against him. His solicitor, Richard Morris, was trying to remain optimistic, but Harry could see defeat in his eyes. It was
over. The case would go to trial and he would stand in the dock and …

Harry thought of his father and how he would feel. His only son convicted of murder. He let out a low groan. He should have
made that phone call after he moved into the flat. He should have gone to visit him. Now the only visiting would be done by
Henry Lind in the grim surroundings of a prison. And it was not only his father he had let down. There was Mac to consider
too, the one person who had offered him a second chance after his police career had been blown to hell. Not to mention Valerie.
What would she be thinking? Did she believe in his innocence, or was there a tiny seed of doubt nestled in the back of her
mind?

He shook his head. No, there was no point in torturing himself this way. Whatever the future held, he had to find a way of
coping. But the words
life imprisonment cut
like a scythe across his good intentions. The breath caught in his throat. He thought of Donald Peck, continuing to protest
his innocence until desperation drove him to place a noose around his own neck. He wondered how strong he himself would be
when faced with the ultimate challenge.

His mind drifted back to that day fourteen years ago, to the shabby terrace in Morton Grove, to the rickety creaking staircase
that led up to the bedrooms. One foot in front of the other
until he reached the landing. Grey light coming in through a small window. The delicate pattering sound of rain against glass.
A brief pause before his hand reached out to turn the handle, to push open the door … and then the sudden wafting stench of
death.

It was then, suddenly, that Harry remembered what he’d done next. The room had been dim, the curtains pulled partly across.
He had looked for a light switch but there hadn’t been one, only an old pull cord that had frayed and broken and been tied
up high.

‘Jesus,’ he murmured, a shiver running through him.

And instantly he knew what Lynda Choi had been so distressed about. She must have found a photo of the bedroom in an old newspaper.
She must have realised what it meant. The cord was way out of reach of Minnie Bright’s tiny hands. And if Minnie hadn’t turned
on the light, then …

Harry jumped up, walked across the cell and hammered on the door. ‘Hey!’ he called out. ‘I need to see someone. I need to
see someone now!’

It was getting on for five before the news came through that Mac was on his way to Cowan Road with Paul Rafferty. Jess was
relieved, but she knew that Harry wasn’t off the hook yet. The law would need to be convinced that Rafferty’s story was true
before even considering the release of a major suspect. Too restless to wait any longer in the office, she decided to continue
her pacing upstairs.

Out on the landing, she saw that the cameras had finally been installed. They must have been there when she’d come back with
Mac, but she’d been too preoccupied to notice them. They were fixed high up on the wall, their tiny red lights blinking. It
was an odd feeling to know that she was under scrutiny, that her every expression, every movement was being recorded.

She climbed up the stairs and went into the flat. Once inside, she didn’t know what to do with herself. How was she going
to pass the next few hours without going completely crazy? She put the kettle on, intending to make a cup of coffee, but then
changed her mind and opened a bottle of red wine
instead. Caffeine was only going to add to her jitters. Alcohol probably wasn’t the answer either, but at least it might calm
her nerves.

Taking the bottle and a glass through to the living room, she looked around. What now? She needed a project to keep her occupied.
The Minnie Bright file was on the coffee table, but she instantly dismissed the idea of reading through it again. She was
too distracted to be able to concentrate. No, what she needed was something more physical, some way of exhausting all her
nervous energy.

It was then that her eyes alighted on the cans of paint stacked up in the corner. Harry had started the decorating but hadn’t
got round to completing it. On a couple of walls the old colour was still clearly visible beneath the new layer of white.
Now there was a project! It would also be a way of repaying him for everything he’d done for her. She poured herself a glass
of wine, took a couple of swigs and set to work.

First she moved the furniture to the centre of the room and covered it with the dust sheets. Then she prised open the lid
of one of the cans, poured a couple of inches of paint into the tray and slid in the roller. Starting with the left-hand wall,
she began working fast and furiously, the sheer physical effort draining her mind of everything but the task in hand. She
realised too late that she should have changed her clothes, but as her jeans and shirt were already spattered with paint,
there wasn’t much point in doing it now. With luck, it would all come out in the wash.

An hour later, her arm aching, Jess stood back to view her progress. Yes, it was already looking much better. When Harry got
back – not
if,
she insisted to herself, but
when
– the newly decorated living room would be ready and waiting. She was about to resume work when there was a light knock on
the door.

‘Hi, it’s only me,’ Lorna called out.

Jess rushed over and opened the door. ‘Is there any news?’

Lorna shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, luv, nothing yet. Mac’s still down at Cowan Road.’

‘Okay,’ Jess said, swallowing down her disappointment.

‘I just wanted to let you know that I’m off home now, but I’ll give you a ring as soon as I hear anything.’ Just as she was
about to go, Lorna stopped and stretched out her hand. It contained an A4 brown envelope. ‘Oh, I almost forgot. This was dropped
off for you about ten minutes ago.’

Jess took the envelope and looked down at her name scribbled on the front. She didn’t recognise the handwriting.

‘I told her I could ring up and get you to come down, but she said it didn’t matter.’

‘She?’

‘A pretty girl, long red hair. She said not to bother, that she was in a hurry.’

‘Okay, thanks,’ Jess said. It must have been Clare Towney. She couldn’t think of anyone else who fitted the description.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow then,’ Lorna said. ‘Take care.’

‘Bye, Lorna.’

Puzzled, Jess walked back across the room. Clare had already admitted her part in the threats that had been made against Sam
Kendall, so what was so urgent about whatever was in the envelope that it had to be delivered by hand? Well, there was only
one way to find out. She dragged the dust sheets off the sofa, dropped the envelope on to a cushion and went through to the
kitchen to wash the paint off her hands.

When she came back, she wandered over to the window and looked up and down the street. There was no sign of Clare. She sat
down on the sofa and ripped the envelope open. It contained about fifteen sheets of paper, neatly typed and stapled together.
She sat back and started to read.