Death Sentence (7 page)

Ignoring the hand Patrick offered him, Hayes, a short, stocky, heavy-jowled man, gave him a cursory glance, and then turned his attention back to the girl.

‘Nice,’ he observed, looking her appreciatively over.

Patrick did likewise, more than happy to distract Hayes from business with pleasure. She wasn’t bad, he had to admit: lithe and tanned, blonde hair down to her bum. The ankle bracelets were a nice touch. He took in the sequined ankle bands she was wearing along with her black sequined thong. It was the stilettos that did if for Patrick though: six inch heels on long shapely legs. You could keep the rest as far as Patrick was concerned.

Rewarding the girl with two crisp twenty pound notes, folded and appropriately placed, Hayes reached for his whisky and took a leisurely sip.

‘I like what you’ve done with the place.’ He glanced around, taking in the vintage plum coloured walls, rich mahogany woodwork and gilt-edged mirrors,
French, nineteenth century, Louis XVI style
, which had set Patrick back a bob or two. But then, needs must if you wanted to attract the right clientele. The place looked like a sleaze-pit in his old man’s day. Even Patrick couldn’t blame the town council for trying to shut them down.

‘Another drink, Tony?’ Patrick offered. Desperate to keep him sweet, he nodded at a passing waitress, indicating the man’s glass needed topping up. Hayes was here for information, but Patrick was guessing it wasn’t the name of his interior decorator he came for.

Hayes, though, didn’t want another drink, it seemed. Placing his hand over his glass as the waitress attempted to pour, he pushed himself away from the table and got to his feet, the two heavies at his side immediately shadowing him. ‘I have a prior engagement,’ he said, turning to face Patrick.

Standing a good few inches taller than Patrick’s five-eight, both of his henchmen looked like pro wrestlers who would enjoy taking him apart, limb from limb. Patrick gulped back a knot in his throat, and hoped the perspiration popping out on his forehead wasn’t too obvious.

‘You have news for me, I hope?’ Hayes’ tone was impassive, his expression bland, belying the ruthless bastard he was underneath.

Patrick felt perspiration now wetting his armpits.

‘I’m working on it, Tony,’ he assured him shakily. ‘I have an idea who was involved and I—’

‘Ideas don’t pay the bills, Patrick, do they?’ Hayes interrupted flatly. ‘I’ll give you another week,’ he said, and smiled, the look in his arctic blue eyes deceptively amiable.

His throat suddenly too parched to speak, Patrick gulped again, hard.

‘After that, we start seizing goods to recoup our losses,’ Hayes casually examined his well-manicured nails, before looking pointedly back at him, ‘starting with your balls.’

Sickening apprehension immediately squeezed his pelvis in that particular area, and Patrick searched for a way to stall but came up with nothing.

‘I, er, think I might need a little more time than a week, Tony,’ he tried, wishing he’d taken the conversation through to the office, where his humiliation wouldn’t be witnessed. ‘I’ve got people on it as we speak, but—’

‘Seven days, Sullivan.’ Hayes stepped past him, his two heavies moving simultaneously with him, both of whom would think nothing of taking Patrick outside and biting his ears off by way of subtle indication of what might come next.

‘I don’t care how you do it,’ Hayes imparted, over his shoulder. ‘Burn your poxy club to the ground if you have to and claim on the insurance. I don’t give a toss. If you want to keep hold of any part of your tackle, sort it.’

With which Hayes headed towards the exit, cueing his henchmen to follow.

Neanderthals
, Patrick thought bitterly, swiping a trail of sweat from his cheek with the back of his hand. Then he drew his shoulders up, lest anyone notice he was rattled, and headed for the bar. He needed a drink. He needed several.

‘Gin,’ he snapped, indicating the barman to get his arse over to him pronto. ‘Make it a large one.’

‘Ice and a slice, Mr Sullivan?’ the barman enquired pleasantly.

‘No, I do not want ice and a fucking slice! Do I look gay, or what!?’ Patrick glared at the kid, a university grad.
God help the state of the country
. Patrick eyed the two-fingers of gin he was offered despairingly. The idiot wasn’t even capable of serving up a decent drink.

‘I said
large,
’ he seethed, slamming the glass back down and turning to walk around the bar. ‘
Christ Al-bloody-mighty
, do I have to do
everything
my …’

Patrick stopped as he heard a distinct sneer from a table just behind him.
Oh, for
… His jaw set in a grimace, Patrick eyed the ceiling. Just what he needed. His old man, obviously having decided to stumble in, had witnessed proceedings and was clearly about to revel in his humiliation.

‘Patrick.’ His father raised his glass, as Patrick turned to face him. ‘Well done, me boy. Couldn’t have done better meself. Hayes will be quaking in his designer loafers, so he will.’ Taking a drink, his father wiped a hand over his mouth and looked back to Patrick, that same derogatory look in his eye Patrick had suffered since he was knee-high.

‘You’d better make that your last.’ Patrick attempted some degree of civility for the sake of paying customers.

‘My last, my ever-lovin’ shon, will be when
I’ve
finished drinking.’ His father slurred, one eye closed and the other unfocused, as he pointed his now empty glass in Patrick’s direction. ‘Meanwhile, it would pay you to concentrate on keeping your balls, yer fucking eejit.’

‘You’ve had enough,’ Patrick warned him, seething quietly inside.

‘Lucy!’ Ignoring him, his father clicked his fingers and waved his empty bottle, indicating that one of the dancers should bring him another.

And serve it whilst sitting in his lap, no doubt.
Patrick curled a lip, repulsed, as he watched his alcohol-soaked old man openly leering at the girl, who sashayed across willingly enough, bottle in hand and a smile glued to her face. The look in her eyes as she glanced at Patrick, though, told her she didn’t want Michael Sullivan’s sweaty wet paws all over her and his whisky-laden breath in her face. The girls were all much the same to Patrick, dressed in uniform sequined thongs, he couldn’t be arsed to differentiate one from the other, unless they had exceptional ankles, but even he could sympathise.

‘Come here, my little temptress.’ His old man slapped his knee, and then reached a hand around the girl, squeezing her backside demonstratively. ‘Dance for me, darlin’,’ he growled. ‘Shove those tempting ripe breasts in me face and let me die a happy man.’

Patrick watched on, wishing the old bastard
would
die as he yanked the girl close and buried his face in her cleavage, his hairpiece skewing on his bald head as he did. The drunken old sod was a complete embarrassment. Fury bubbling inside him, Patrick turned back to the bar to down his gin in one.

He was about to start on another when a crash behind him signalled his old man was on his way out back, stumbling over stools, as per, and cursing liberally as he went.

Walking back towards Patrick, adjusting her bra-top and looking somewhere between grim and flustered, Lucy eyed him worriedly. ‘He wants me to take him another bottle. Should I?’ she asked.

Obviously, the mighty Michael Sullivan intended to make use of the office with Lucy after he’d made use of the urinal, as if he was capable of successfully doing either. Reviled, as he watched his father stumble through to the corridor, Patrick had a lightbulb moment. ‘No,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I’ll do it.’

Gesturing the girl to put her abundant assets to better use elsewhere, Patrick went around the bar and selected a
Jameson
original Irish whiskey. His father normally only ever drank
Gold Reserve
, but Patrick had a feeling he wouldn’t be savouring the taste of it tonight.

Chapter Five

‘So, you followed in your father’s footsteps then?’ Steve asked, making idle conversation, as they waited outside Sullivan’s residence, set in its own private grounds, complete with tennis courts and swimming pool. If there were any justice, the pool man would over-chlorinate it and Sullivan would choke to death. Matthew amused himself with the thought. Then again, that wouldn’t be a painful enough way for an evil runt the likes of Sullivan to go.

‘Something like that,’ Matthew shrugged an answer and reached for his coffee, which was lukewarm, and really wasn’t satiating his thirst for something stronger. ‘I doubt I’ll make DCI anytime soon though.’

‘You don’t fancy another pip on your epaulette then?’

‘Maybe. Sometime.’ Matthew shrugged again and took a drink from his cup. Assuming he wasn’t up on a charge himself, that was. The need to get Sullivan off the streets was so all-consuming sometimes he was sorely tempted to look at alternatives to the legal way.

‘Still on the force, is he, the old man?’ Obviously aware of his father’s ranking, Steve pursued the conversation, though Matthew would much rather he didn’t.

‘Nope,’ he replied shortly.

‘Retired, then, is he? Got a decent pension, I imagine. I suppose it’s worth—’

‘Dead,’ Matthew cut him short.

Steve shifted uncomfortably. ‘Oh, sorry, mate,’ he offered his condolences embarrassedly. ‘I didn’t realise.’

Matthew smiled and nodded shortly, hopefully indicating subject closed. The fact that his father had started down that alternative route, also determined to get certain vermin off the streets, and then taken his own life—his only viable alternative to disgrace as he saw it, wasn’t a subject Matthew wanted to discuss.

Sipping his coffee, Steve fell silent for a while, mercifully, and then, ‘So, what’s Sullivan’s story?’

Matthew tugged in a breath. ‘Oh, he definitely followed in his old man’s footsteps,’ he supplied, with a sneer of derision. ‘Michael Sullivan,’ he went on, crushing his empty coffee cup, as he recalled how the man’s unpunished activities had eaten away at his own father like cancer, ‘local bigshot and drug king-pin, expects his sons to worship the ground he walks on.’

‘And do they?’ Steve asked, attempting to profile Patrick Sullivan, Matthew guessed.

‘I seriously doubt it.’ He laughed scornfully. ‘They towed the line when they were younger, no choice but to, Michael Sullivan isn’t averse to teaching people a lesson if they cross him.’

‘Blimey,’ Steve shook his head, ‘you’ll have me feeling sorry for him in a minute.’

‘I wouldn’t waste any sympathy on Patrick Sullivan. He gave as good as he got, mostly kicking the crap out of anyone who wasn’t in a position to fight back.’

Mostly him, Matthew didn’t add, checked his watch instead, and wondered where Sullivan was. Wasn’t he overdue his stress-relieving swim in his heated swimming pool? The thought stuck in Matthew’s craw.

‘Did his old man ever get done?’ Steve was obviously keen to collect details.

‘Never. He’s retired now. Ran his cartel out of
Seventh Heaven
, before handing the reins over to his pimping little prodigies: a legit business on the face of it,’ Matthew filled him in. ‘Behind the scenes: drug-dealing, lap-dancers offering services under the table, supplying girls to punters who liked them young.’

He paused, swallowing back the bile in his throat as Brianna’s broken body flashed graphically through his mind.

‘He ran the whole operation with an iron fist, one he didn’t hesitate to use if anyone dared disrespect him—anyone including his sons and his wife.’

She’d often walked around with bruised eyes and split lips, Matthew had noticed even back then, and was the only person in the Sullivan family he’d ever had an ounce of sympathy for.

‘Definitely like father like son, then.’ Steve swilled his coffee back and crumpled his cup. ‘Talking of whom …’ He nodded through the windscreen as a black BMW cruised into view.

****

Patrick took a long tout on his spliff as he drove, hoping to wind down before he reached home. Proceedings at
Seventh Heaven
hadn’t improved his mood. He could still hardly believe that, after dropping his father off at a nice leafy secluded spot on the river bank, he’d gone back to the club for a wash and brush up, only to find one of his staff on the take. Should have taken the thieving little shit out back and chopped his fingers off. Patrick’s mouth curved into a smile, as he recalled how his brother had once done just that. He’d been generous, left the guy with nine fingers, and then made him flush his own pinkie down the toilet. The idiot should have known better than to shave drugs off a stash and think he could get away with it. His brother had sorted him. Reliable Joe had been. Patrick tightened his grip on the wheel, incensed afresh at the way his brother had been shot down like a dog. Some novice on the drugs squad might have gotten trigger-happy, but Patrick had no doubt that Adams had had a part to play in it. The man had been a thorn in Patrick’s side all his life.

Then he’d learned two girls had gone off sick. Obviously piss-taking was catching. Shaking his head, Patrick took another terse draw on his joint. To make matters worse, the new girl he’d taken on turned out to have about as much sexual allure as cold tapioca. Apparently dance-school trained, but new to the doing it naked bit, Patrick had guessed she was probably nervous and had magnanimously given her another chance to come back for a private session. Dancing in front of an actual audience with nothing but a few sequins covering her bits and bleeding brainless oafs leering at her couldn’t have been easy.

Nice bits though. What was her name? Jamie Collins. That was it. Patrick pictured the girl in his mind’s eye. She was getting on a bit at twenty-six, but definitely tasty. She reminded him of Rachel, had that innocent look about her. Rachel had been the first girl he’d fancied; fancied as in getting to know, rather than shag. He’d have liked to have spent more time with her, Patrick reminisced as he neared his house. No chance of that, though, was there, with his old man on him like a Rottweiler. Patrick understood, to a degree, why the old man had had to put him right on a few things. He was acting like a dumb-fuck, he’d pointed out, forcefully: letting his balls rule his brain and getting emotionally involved with one of the toms.