Black Daffodil (Trevor Joseph Detective series) (10 page)

‘Jake and me grew up on the same estate. He was a lot older than me. He was my sister’s friend not mine. They were the same age, but he never used to tease me or hurt me like the other boys. His mam was nice too. She used to give me and my sisters biscuits and cakes whenever we went round there.’

‘Well, there you are then, more than one person has been nice to you. Jake and his mam.’ He smiled at her and she smiled back at him through her tears.

‘I’d get a right telling off if management knew how I was carrying on. We’re supposed to smile and pretend to be happy all the time. Even when we can’t stand the client … especially when we can’t stand the client.’

‘That can’t be easy,’ he commiserated with her.

‘It isn’t. Some of them expect you to do horrible things.’ She shuddered.

‘Why you here, love?’ Peter asked.

‘What do you mean?’ She retreated towards the wall.

‘There’s no way you’re sixteen.’

Her voice grew shrill in alarm. ‘I am too.’

‘You’re young, you’re pretty. You’re not a user. But if you stay here you soon will be.’

‘I need the money.’

‘There are other jobs.’

‘None that pay the money this one does. I have … a friend who needs stuff.’

‘Stuff?’ he repeated.

She turned aside.

‘Charlie?’ he ventured.

She nodded. ‘It’s expensive. She promised to try and get off it but it’s hard. She’s cut down …’ her eyes widened in panic. ‘You’re not a cop are you? If you are I’m supposed to press the panic button.’

Peter slipped his hand into his pocket of his suit and pulled out two packets. ‘I wouldn’t be giving you these if I was a copper?’

She took them from him and stared at them in wonder. ‘There has to be a couple of grams there.’

‘There are.’

‘I haven’t enough money to pay for them.’

‘I don’t want any.’

‘Then what do you want?’ she demanded suspiciously.

‘This is no life for a pretty young girl, Kelly …’

‘You one of them religious nuts?’ She shrank even further away from him.

He burst out laughing. ‘I’ve been called many things but no one’s accused me of being a religious nut before.’

‘Because if you expect me to pray with you …’

‘I’m not a religious nut. I don’t want you to pray with me, I just want to talk to you about Jake and what happened to him in the party.’

There was a sharp rap on the door. Kelly jumped.

‘Who is it?’

‘One of your regulars is here, Kelly,’ the receptionist spoke through the door. ‘He wants to see you right away.’

‘I paid for a massage,’ Peter snapped back.

‘I’ll send one of the other girls in, sir.’

‘I don’t want one of the other girls.’

Kelly looked at him before opening the door. ‘Sorry.’

It was only when he turned around that Peter realised she’d taken the drugs he’d given her.

Peter left the massage parlour, crossed the road and looked around for Trevor. He saw him leaning on the railings that fenced off the sea, staring at the last faint glimmer of light on the horizon that separated sky from water. There was no one else within a hundred yards. Even in pensive mood, with his shaved head and grim expression, Trevor appeared intimidating.

Peter joined him. ‘So, how was it for you?’

‘The rooms are bugged.’

‘So I discovered. I got Kelly to admit she knew Jake; was at that party and was financing someone with a coke habit, but she was hauled out. I hope they don’t do anything more to her than they already have. I’ll contact Andrew. It’s time the locals raided the place.’

Trevor glanced over his shoulder. Peter noticed.

‘We’re being ridiculous with all this checking and double-checking. If anyone
is
watching us, it’s because we look shifty on the basis of our haircuts alone.’

‘Did you get anything out of Kelly?’

‘As I said, my session was cut short. The receptionist said one of Kelly’s regulars had come in. She charged out like a rocket after pocketing the present I’d given her.’

‘Drugs?’

‘And cash.’

‘You think she was ordered out because she was talking to you?’

‘Yes. She was ordered out mid-flow.’

‘A working girl as young as Kelly would have any number of regulars.’

‘Suppose for argument’s sake that Damian Darrow is behind the manufacturing of Black Daffodil.’

‘I don’t buy that,’ Trevor dismissed.

‘Because he hasn’t the nonce?’

‘Because he has all the money he could spend in one lifetime. And, he can get more any time by touching up Daddy who is making too much out of his semi-legit businesses to get mixed up in something like Black Daffodil.’

‘Even for the millions the Russians are offering?’ Peter lifted his eyebrows.

Trevor thought for a moment. ‘I take your point. Eric Darrow is a greedy bastard.’

Peter looked up and down the street. ‘I want to get in touch with Andrew and arrange protection for Kelly but I can’t phone here.’

‘The hotel is ten minutes away. One of our bathrooms is as good a place as any,’

They retraced their steps along the front with its mix of neon-lit restaurant facades, and luxury flats. By tacit agreement they crossed the road and walked on the quiet side.

‘When you say protection, you going to ask Dan to assign Kelly a babysitter?’ Trevor quickened his step to keep up with Peter.

‘I’d like the locals to take her into protective custody. I don’t want her to end up like Jake – or worse. And if the locals are right and the Darrows do own that parlour and, punish her for saying too much – not that it was useful – there’s no saying what they’ll do to her. After seeing that interview I suspect young Darrow can be every bit as vicious as his old man.’

‘The locals will need a reason. They can’t just go into that parlour and whisk her out.’

‘She’s under-age.’

‘She told you?’

‘No, but I know a kid when I see one.’

‘She could be using a friend or relative’s identity.’

‘She could. But if the locals need another excuse they could pick her up as a material witness to Jake’s attempted murder.’

‘Only if she admits to seeing something at that party,’ Trevor warned.

‘Did Lucy tell you she was there?’

‘Yes. But like Damian and Lloyd, she was too busy to see what was going on.’

Ten minutes later after a hurried call to Andrew, Peter took a disposable Sim card from his phone and crushed it between his fingers. He wrapped it in a tissue, pushed it into his pocket and made a note to dump it in the first public bin they walked past. He unlocked the bathroom door and walked through the bedroom into the lounge. Trevor was watching TV.

‘I see you’re watching the usual news on a loop crap.’

Trevor didn’t turn away from the screen. ‘Sorted?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then it’s the casino. Get your wallet ready.’

‘It’s jumping up and down in my pocket at the thought of getting fatter.’ Peter picked up his card key. ‘Let’s go.’

Chapter Ten

The casino was busier than it had been the night before. Peter made a beeline for the same blackjack table he had patronised the previous evening. Trevor went to the roulette table and watched the state of play. He ordered a double vodka on the rocks from one of the waitresses and shook off the hostesses who tried to pick him up.

Alfred was standing opposite him on the other side of the table. He was with half a dozen of his ‘new friends’ all tall, black and handsome in well-cut suits and silk shirts. Trevor found it strange that dedicated teachers, nurses, and other essential workers could never aspire to dress or live as well as criminals who flouted the law.

Trevor watched Alfred place ten one-hundred-pound chips on red. He lost, shrugged in keeping with his undercover character and took another thousand pounds from the stack in front of him.

A group of expressionless Chinese entered the casino and walked to the back of the room just as they had done the night before, Lee among them. They disappeared through the same door. Trevor looked for but saw no sign of Maria Sanchez or Michael Sullivan, then recalled Dan telling him that they were having dinner with the Columbians.

He watched the roulette wheel for twenty minutes before using his American Express card to buy a thousand pounds worth of chips. He returned to the table and placed fifty pounds on red. It wasn’t a bet that required much attention.

One of Alfred’s companions whispered in Alfred’s ear. A few minutes later they left the table and walked through the door that led to the private rooms and toilets. Peter was sitting at the blackjack table apparently engrossed in his game but Trevor noticed he had also clocked Alfred’s disappearance. Unlike the previous evening, the Russian, Alexander Markov and the Albanian, Justin Lebov, were with different groups, both were playing dice. He checked his watch. Eleven forty-five. An hour and a quarter to go before the 1 a.m. deadline for the Yardies to make their offer on Black Daffodil. The ball landed on red. He scooped up his winning chips. Time to make another bet.

Lee picked up the cards he had been dealt and fanned out his hand cautiously so no one could see what he was holding. He played with the chips on the piles in front of him. He took six and pushed them forward.

A cord lassoed around his neck.

He choked when it tightened. His head jerked and slammed into the high back of the chair behind him.

‘Mr Policeman?’ Hostile eyes glared upside down into his. ‘Your body has Chinese blood. But your loyalties are not with your race.’

Lee would have protested if he’d been able to make a sound.

‘Perhaps you had a forefather whose soul wasn’t tainted. They would have told you about the old country. The old ways. What warriors do to traitors? Which part of your body can you do without, traitor policeman?’

Lee’s eyes widened in panic. He could barely breathe. Speech was impossible. His neck burned. His wind pipe was being severed.

‘Blink when I mention which part of your body you can dispense with. Your right arm?’

Lee fought to keep his eyes open, unblinking.

‘Your right leg?’

Lee focused on a spot on the ceiling. He concentrated with all his might. His eyes were dry, burning but he dare not close his eyelids.

‘Your left leg?’

The pain in his neck and eyes was excruciating – intensifying.

‘Your head?’

The suggestion provoked subdued laughter. Lee tried to raise his hands to loosen the rope around his neck. He couldn’t move them. They had been looped together behind the chair and it hadn’t even registered.

‘The left arm? That is all that remains. The instrument if you please.’

A machete flashed before Lee’s eyes. Air hissed past his left ear. He glimpsed a black tarpaulin being thrown on to the carpet. Tape was plastered across his mouth sealing his lips. More was wound around his chest pinning him to the back of the chair. His legs were fastened at the ankles. His chair rocked precariously and landed on its side. Pins and needles shot through his hands as the bonds were cut on his wrists.

The men around the table moved in on him. One held his legs in an iron grip. The noose around his neck cut through his skin into his flesh. He felt droplets of blood crawl down towards his collar. His right arm was pinned to the floor. His left extended over the tarpaulin. A rope was passed around his bicep and tightened. A short stick was placed beneath the rope and turned, twisting and tightening the tourniquet. The pain was excruciating, overriding even the pain in his neck.

The room faded to grey. The machete caught the light as it sliced downwards, a dart of shimmering silver in the gloom. His severed arm lay on the tarpaulin; pumping out blood. His first thought was the pain wasn’t as great as he had feared.

The last thing he saw was the clean-cut, bloodied amputation above his elbow.

Trevor was three hundred pounds down, when he spotted Andrew playing the fruit machines. He watched him surreptitiously for a while, saw him hit a jackpot, pile his winnings into a cup, and allow himself to be picked up by one of the hostesses.

Trevor didn’t know if it was his imagination or if tension was building in the room. The atmosphere seemed to have changed, sharpened, heightening his senses. He moved on from betting black or red to betting on numbers and to his surprise began to win modest amounts more often than he lost. But his attention remained focused on what was happening around him, rather than the outcome of the spinning of the roulette wheel.

‘So where’s the deal going down?’ Alfred looked around the deserted gents.

The man Alfred knew as ‘Bozo’ pulled a couple of short, plastic straws and a packet from his pocket. He walked past the sinks to the marble work surface in front of the mirrors at the end of the run. Leaning against the wall, he took a flat metal card case from his inside jacket pocket and opened it out. There were no cards, only a glossy metal surface. He shook the powder on to it. Using a credit card, he cut the powder into two lines. He handed Alfred one of the straws.

‘I’m OK.’ Alfred held up his hands.

‘No one turns down a free one when we offer it, man. Hurry up. Someone could come in.’

Given that two of their companions were standing in front of the door, blocking it, Alfred felt it unlikely they’d be disturbed, but he took the straw, turned his back to Bozo and held the straw over the line. A sudden and excruciating pain in his kidneys caught him off balance. He clamped his hands on the worktop but it was too little, too late. By the time he hit the floor all sense of feeling and being had left his body.

When Alfred’s four companions returned without him, Trevor was worried, but he had a hundred and fifty pounds worth of chips riding on the wheel. He couldn’t have given a toss what happened to it, but he knew the people around him would find it odd if he walked away before the wheel stopped spinning. The last thing he could afford to do was jeopardise his and Peter’s cover.

The wheel had never spun so long. Even when it slowed, the ball bounced from one slot to another. Trevor managed a deprecating smile when it became clear he had lost. He pocketed his remaining chips, except for one twenty-pound chip which he handed to the girl manning the wheel and two ten-pound chips which he gave to the girls who’d been shovelling the losing chips into black bags.

Pockets bulging, he walked quickly – but not too quickly, to the back of the room. He opened the door that led to the corridor that housed the private rooms and toilets and went into the Gents. Blinding white-tiled floors, wall and worktops gleamed vacantly back at him. The air smelled of antiseptic and the pine-scented hand-wash in the porcelain dispensers. A single dripping tap echoed ‘pings’ that shattered the silence. There were no other sounds. The piped music and buzz of conversation in the casino had been closed out, two doors and several feet away.

He looked along the line of cubicles. All the doors were open except for the one at the far end. He approached it cautiously, and knocked. When no one replied, he pushed it. It held firm, locked on the inside.

‘Is anyone there?’ His voice resounded hollowly, alongside the drip of the tap.

He went into the adjoining cubicle, locked the door, climbed on to the toilet seat and looked over the top of the partition. Alfred was slumped on the lid of the closed toilet seat. His suit jacket lay on the floor at his feet. The right sleeve of his shirt was rolled up. A rubber tube had been tightened around his upper arm and a hypodermic syringe stuck in the crook of his elbow. His head was tilted back; his dark brown eyes open, staring, devoid of the warmth that had animated them in life. Cold, dead they gazed blindly into Trevor’s.

Trevor leaned back and almost lost his balance. He clutched the top of the wall to steady himself. Alfred was a good man, a sound copper, a reliable colleague. He had met Alfred’s wife and three children – two boys and a girl. Seen what a devoted husband and father he was. And now – now – in the space of a less than half an hour Alfred had been transformed from living, loving, happy family man and dedicated police officer to corpse.

Trevor climbed down off the pan, sat on it and sank his head in his hands. He retreated into the persona of cool, emotionless, trained officer. He had seen Alfred leave the floor of the casino with four men and those same four men return without him half an hour later. He had no doubt that they had murdered Alfred. The one thing he could be one hundred percent certain of was that Alfred was no drug addict.

The question he had to ask was: had Alfred slipped up and inadvertently blown his cover, a mistake that any one of them working on this operation was capable of. Or had someone discovered Alfred was an undercover police officer and shopped him to the gang he’d infiltrated? If it was the latter, they could all be in danger? Lee, Maria, Michael, Justin, Alexander – Peter – him.

Nauseous, he rose to his feet. The place was still empty but for how long? How many people had seen him leave the casino? He hadn’t been invited to join a private game so there was only one place he could be.

He left the cubicle and looked for CCTV cameras. There was one set over the door. The lens was trained on the washbasins and wouldn’t cover the area in front of the cubicles. He should have checked for CCTV before he entered the cubicle, climbed up and looked over the dividing wall. Between that omission and the conversation he’d had with Peter, he was making too many slip-ups for a married man about to become a father.

He conjured images of Alfred’s wife and children and considered how the news of Alfred’s death would affect them as a family and individuals. How it would blight Alfred’s children’s lives. Would Lyn ever …

He pushed the unbearable idea from his mind before it formed.

He walked to the sink, ran a basin of cold water, plunged his hands into it and splashed his face. Two questions dominated his thinking and he couldn’t provide an answer to either. Had Alfred slipped up? Or was there a leak?

He relegated both to the ‘be thought of later’ compartment. He had a more immediate and pressing problem.

The door opened and two men swaggered in. They went to the urinals. He switched off the tap and left, walking straight back to the casino.

He had to alert Andrew without putting either his own or Peter’s cover at risk.

Peter was still playing blackjack, apparently engrossed in the game, although he was looking around the room at intervals as he had done all evening. Andrew was at the bar chatting to the hostess who was wearing a transparent silk dress. She was sipping a champagne cocktail – the preferred ‘in-house’ hostess drink.

There was no sign of Lebov, or what was more disturbing, his friends. Markov was playing dice. Trevor went to the bar, ordered a drink and smiled at Andrew. ‘Mr Horton, what a surprise.’

‘Mr Brown, I don’t talk business outside the office,’ Andrew shook the hand Trevor offered him.

‘Neither do I, Mr Horton. Just sampling some of the entertainment on offer in the Bay.’

The girl who was with Andrew coughed loudly.

Trevor apologised. ‘Where are my manners? Would you and the lady like a drink?’

‘Mine’s a champagne cocktail.’ The blonde sidled up to him. Andrew had obviously been trying to give her the brush-off.

‘Malt whisky, straight.’ Andrew eyed Trevor warily.

Trevor turned to the barman. ‘Malt whisky, champagne cocktail and vodka on the rocks. Any vodka as long as it’s Russian and have one yourself.’ Trevor handed over his American Express card.

‘Let me help you with those, Mr Brown.’ Andrew took the champagne cocktail as the barman swiped Trevor’s card.

‘I heard a good joke today,’ Trevor lowered his voice, ‘but it’s not fit for the lady’s ears.’ He leaned close to Andrew and whispered. ‘Alfred’s dead. His body is in the Gents.’

Andrew went white and Trevor slapped his back.

‘Isn’t that hilarious?’

‘Yes … yes,’ Andrew stammered, ‘poor taste, Mr Brown, but hilarious. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve forgotten to tell my area manager I will be out of the office tomorrow morning. Dental appointment. I’d better phone him right now before I forget again.’

‘There’s nothing worse than suffering with your teeth,’ Trevor sympathised. ‘Excuse me,’ he beamed at the girl who was already halfway down her cocktail. ‘Lady Luck is calling.’ He rattled the chips in his pocket and returned to the roulette table.

Trevor had placed his bet, red nine, and the croupier had spun the wheel when two uniformed police officers entered the casino. One was speaking into a mobile phone. They drew aside the bouncers manning the entrance. After a few minutes the bouncers closed the doors and stood with their backs to them, facing the room.

Trevor watched the floor manager run towards the police officers. It was too early for Andrew to have called anyone. He glanced over to the door leading to the toilets and saw Andrew, mobile in hand, looking as mystified as he was.

There was a banging on the door. One of the officers spoke to the bouncers who were manning it. They opened the door and a dozen uniformed officers filed into the casino. The music stopped, a lift door opened and a man stepped out. He marched up to the most senior officer present, a superintendent. He didn’t speak particularly loudly but a hush had fallen over the room and his voice carried over to the roulette table.