East of the City (42 page)

‘Is all that true?’

‘True?’ He looked at me like he couldn’t believe the question. ‘Course it’s not fuckin’ true, you think I’m daft? Bastard,’ he said again, his mind going back to Chambers.

‘So what is true, Eddie? What happened that night?’

He seemed to draw back into himself, figuring again, sly as a rat. Then I noticed him glancing towards the door. I took out my mobile and placed it on the table, my hand resting there lightly. His face fell.

‘What happened?' I said. ‘Or would you like me to just whistle?'

‘Look, Sebastian was dead. Stone cold. No mark on him, no blood, seemed like he’d just keeled over, you know, stroke or somethin’. There was a blanket beside him, an empty champagne bottle too. The way he was lyin’ there, he coulda been asleep ’cept for his fuckin’ lips were blue. Straight up. I went back to the security room and flipped through all the cameras.'

‘On the monitor.’

‘Yeah. Seein’ if anyone was in the house.’

‘You checked the bedroom?’

Pike nodded. ‘Nothin’. Nothin’ anywhere. Then I went and done a lap of the place, doors and windows. Fuck all. Everythin’ just like normal. In the end I go and take another look at him.’

‘You checked his pulse?’

‘Pulse? The fucker was dead. I tell you,’ he said, staring at the floor of the hut like Sebastian was lying there, ‘I coulda kicked him in the guts'

I made a sound. Pike looked over.

‘Max, you know, the son? He hates me. Once he took over, I knew I’d be out on my arse. Unemployed and homeless in one big hit. Terrif.’

‘You didn’t call the police.’

‘I was gonna.’

‘When?’ He didn’t answer, so I made my guess aloud. ‘Once you’d helped yourself to a few of the valuables?'

He smiled at that. He seemed pretty proud of his own quick thinking. And maybe he could even have gotten away with it. In a house like Sebastian’s, half a dozen pieces weren’t going to be missed, not unless someone did an inventory. And if Sebastian really had died from natural causes, an inventory would be the last thing on anyone’s mind. Max would move in, Pike would be thrown out, and the stolen goods might not be missed for years.

‘Hey,’ Pike said. ‘Easy come, easy go. Sebastian was no fuckin’ saint.’

‘One of those valuables wasn’t a diamond brooch, was it?’

‘I wish,’ he said.

I hadn’t really held out much hope for that idea. Pike would still have had the thing in his back pocket. And he certainly wouldn’t have given it to Fielding. But I'd had to ask.

‘And that’s when Chambers showed up?’

He nodded unhappily. ‘Bastard come right in the house. I walk outa the study, there the bastard is, hangin’ over Sebastian. He turns round and clocks me. I’m standin’ there with a friggin’ oil painting.'

‘What did he do?’

‘Nothin’, just stared at me. Then he says, "He’s dead," like he’s arskin’ me to tell him somethin’ else. For a bit there I thought I was gonna have two dead fuckers on the floor, he looked chronic.’

‘Did you ask him why he was there?’

‘Yeah, but he pulls hisself together then. He goes, "What you got that for?" ’ 

‘The painting?'

‘Yeah. Fuckin’ clever dick. "What you got that for?" We give it some verbal, I’m shit scared he’s gonna call the cops. I mean, I’ve got some gear in the van already, and there’s Sebastian lyin’ there, fucked.’ Pike screwed up his face. ‘But he never. We go on givin’ it the verbal then it kinda slides off. Next thing he’s lookin’ at Sebastian again. I swear, I thought the bastard was gonna cry.’

Unlike with Nigel Chambers, Pike didn’t seem to be spinning me a story, he seemed to be really remembering what happened. More than that, it was like he couldn’t forget.

‘He was upset?’

‘Chambers?’ Pike’s eyes opened wide. ‘The bastard went berserk. He starts screamin’ at Sebastian, he completely lost it. “I’m ruined," he goes. "I’m fucked.” He ponces around a bit — like a fuckin’ kid — then he comes up with his brilliant idea.’

‘Did he say why he was ruined?'

Pike shrugged. ‘Shares or somethin’. Big fuckin’ kid, he was.’

Now the whole thing opened up in front of me. Nigel Chambers, in debt up to his neck, the only collateral against the debt a truckload of WardSure shares and his house, had walked in on the biggest disaster of his life. Sebastian Ward was dead. From Nigel’s point of view it hardly mattered how Sebastian got that way, what mattered was the drubbing the WardSure shares were going to take when the market got the news the next morning. Standing there over Sebastian’s body, the awful truth must have crashed down on Nigel like a whacking great boulder. Financially, he was about to be wiped out.

‘What was his brilliant idea?’ I asked Pike.

‘Hide the body,’ he told me glumly. ‘Can you believe the berk? He wanted to use my van.’

‘You wouldn’t let him?’

‘Why should I? Hide the body — I didn’t give a shit about the body — then he threatens to dob me in, let the cops sort me. Full of it, the wanker.’

‘What then?’

Outside, there was the tinny blare of taped trumpets over the loudspeakers, the signal for the dogs to parade before the next race. You couldn’t hear the crowd.

‘Hey,’ Pike said, looking up. ‘Fielding’s not seriously tryin’ to do me for murder? That’s bullshit.’

Ignoring that, I said, ‘You torched the house. That was for what? Just another way to hide the body?’

‘All part of the fuckin’ masterplan,’ Pike said sarcastically, turning his face to the wall. ‘Chambers. Mr Intelligence. Worked a fuckin’ treat, ay?’

I opened my mouth to ask another, then I stopped. The masterplan. Clearly something Pike had been talked into, and now regretted. But unless there was a cut in it for Pike, he wouldn’t have lifted a finger. Not Eddie Pike. So what was it? The stuff he was stealing? But that wasn’t nearly enough for him to have gone along with the arson. It had to be money. Chambers had to have waved a stack of money at him. But Chambers had no money. And then, way too late to do me any good, it clicked. I am a moron.

‘It was you.’

Pike faced me. ‘You what?’

‘You and Chambers.’ I got up. Pike pushed back in the corner. ‘You. It was you.’

I hung over him, he looked up at me with startled eyes. If Nev hadn’t banged his fist on the wall in warning, I think I might have kicked the shit out of Eddie Pike. Instead of that, I stood there frozen, blood pounding in my ears, just dimly aware of the voices passing outside. Pike and Chambers, a pair of complete tossers, they’d had me terrified of being shot, that night at the end of the Greenwich Tunnel. I took steady deep breaths, trying to calm down, while the voices outside moved on.

‘Why’d you ask for me?’ I hissed at Pike. ‘Any bastard could have been the courier, why me?’

‘Who said we did?’

I thumped the wall. Pike put up his hands. ‘Nobody asked for you, okay? Not Chambers or me.’ Then he seemed to realize that he’d just confessed to the kidnap, or attempted extortion, or whatever it was. He looked sick.

I said, ‘Don’t feed me a line.’

‘It’s fuckin’ true.’ He seemed offended that I didn’t believe him. ‘Chambers sent the demand, it come back like, "Okay, we want Collier as the courier."'

‘Chambers told you that?’

‘I seen it. I was standing right there, it come up on his screen thing.’ Pike was getting to his feet now, scared of what I might do to him. His voice was wheedling. 'The whole fuckin’ thing, the arson, the bollocks kidnap, the whole thing, it was Chambers’ idea. He’s lying. I can prove it.’

‘You can’t prove anything.’

Pike smiled nervously. Considering the position he was in, it looked completely idiotic. He said, ‘I’ve got pictures.’

A leech, and cunning as a sewer rat. Cunning, but as he’d proved right through this whole business, a long way short of clever. Eddie Pike had pictures.

Putting two and two together, I said, ‘You lifted stills from that night’s security tapes?’

Five minutes earlier he’d denied he knew how it was done. Now he didn’t bother.

‘Chambers with Sebastian’s body?’ I said.

Pike’s smile became smug. And then I knew exactly what had flushed Nigel Chambers from cover. Why he was suddenly so eager to tell everyone he was at the house that night, and why he wanted to give his story to the police. Eddie Pike had pictures. And some time after the K and R went wrong, he must have decided that Nigel Chambers owed him.

‘Chambers only went to the cops last night,’ I said. ‘I don’t suppose you happened to show him one or two of the pictures yesterday, did you? Trying on a bit of blackmail? "Give me money, or I take these to the police?" ’

Pike, you could see, was pretty pleased with himself. He still didn’t see his mistake. Nigel Chambers had no money.

‘Eddie, you spooked him. And now Chambers has spun a line to the cops that makes your pictures of him with Sebastian’s body absolutely worthless. He’s nobbled you.’

‘Crap.’

‘Your word against his.’

‘Yeah?’ He stuck out his chin. ‘What if the cops see a photo of Chambers dousing the body in petrol? And another one of him setting the body alight? Ay? Reckon they’ll still believe his bullshit then?’

He really was something, Eddie Pike. Maybe, just maybe, a set of photos like that might make Fielding listen to his story.

I said, ‘What about the gun? The pistol found with Ward’s body.’

He shrugged. He said Chambers thought they should leave it there along with the security guard name-badge to help mislead the cops. He added glumly, ‘Only idea the fucker had that worked.’

So Nigel had lied to me and Clive about that too. I guess he knew he had to have a very good reason for not coming forward sooner, so he dreamt up the story about the gun. For me it didn’t matter now anyway. As far as I was concerned, Pike had told me what I needed to know. I’d had a gutful of the pair of them.

Now Pike stepped towards me, and when I blocked his path to the door he didn’t have the bottle to shove his way past.

‘If that’s it,’ he said, ‘I got business.’

I waited till his gaze stopped darting around, till his eyes settled on mine. Then I asked my last question. ‘Did you juice Jeremiah and Lucky Lip for Sebastian?’

The strife Pike was in right now, a doping from months back probably seemed trivial. His eyes went to the door as he said, ‘What if I did?’

And then I saw the change in his expression when his brain clicked into gear. He must have known Sebastian had stung one of the bookies. A second’s thought, and he remembered which one.

A sound escaped from his throat. I stepped up and swung.

He ducked, my fist swiped the air, and he crashed into my side as he ploughed past me out the door. Turning, I stumbled over the cement bag. I hit the floor, then scrambled up, grabbing my mobile. When I finally got outside, Nev was pointing off towards the side of the stand. We watched Eddie Pike disappear into the dark.

Nev started to apologize, but Christ knows what he thought he could have done. Over on the track, the traps opened, the crowd roared. I slumped down on the step.

‘Have much to say for hisself?’ Nev asked me, lifting his chin after Pike.

Plenty, I told him.

Too much, I should have said.

Pike’s version of what happened at Sebastian’s place that night just had to be a truer picture of things than Nigel Chambers’ cock-eyed story. And the K and R disaster, Jesus, I could have strangled Pike and Chambers both for what they’d put me through. But mostly what I thought of, sitting on the step of that hut, the crowd still roaring, was Mum and Dad. It wasn’t Dad that had killed them. What had killed them was a bottle of dog juice, and Sebastian Ward and Eddie Pike.

‘Hello,’ Nev said quietly. He nodded to the darkness near where Pike had gone.

A figure was coming towards us. Not Pike, I saw that immediately, but I couldn’t see the face. He kept on coming, then I recognized him.  I waited till he was almost on us, then I said, ‘Got your pass?’

Bill Tyler stopped like I’d brained him. I rose and stepped into the light, and when he saw who I was he didn’t react for a moment. But when I said his name, he seemed to come back to himself.

‘Nearly gave me a bloody heart attack.’ He smiled as he came on the last little way. ‘Hear you’re in deep shit.'

‘That’s the rumour.'

He pointed to the Pop stand. ‘How do I get over there?’

Behind me Nev piped up, ‘Whaddya after?’

‘Longer odds,’ Bill told him, and the pair of them laughed.

Nev shot me a glance, like asking if I needed him to stay. I shook my head, and he offered to walk back to the Pop with Bill. That was when Bill noticed the stove-in door of the hut. He didn’t say anything, though I could see he wanted to. But by then Nev was up and walking. Bill followed him, looking curiously at me and the door. As Bill passed by me, the ride-on tractor started up, there was a faint smell of diesel, and then there I was again, alone.

I went and sat back down, on the step of the hut. After my meeting with Eddie Pike I had plenty to think about, and I was still at it a few minutes later when Detective Sergeant Fielding showed up.

T
his time I didn’t run. Tubs was with Fielding, talking loud from a long way off to warn me they were coming. But I didn’t run, I just watched them. Fielding had Tubs’s mobile in his hand. Sensing someone away on my left I glanced over that way and saw Fielding’s offsider closing in. He must have spotted me sitting there, and then radioed Fielding.

Hey hey, I thought dismally. Hey hey, the gang’s all here.

The three of them reached me together. Tubs was giving Fielding lip, but Fielding wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention. Fielding leant over me.

‘I understand you’re unemployed, Mr Collier.’

I looked up.

He gestured at his offsider to take a look inside the hut, and I got up and let the bloke go in. A few moments later he came out with Pike’s sleeping bag. Fielding looked from the sleeping bag to me. ‘Visiting a friend?'

‘Sure,’ I said. 'That’s why I had to break the fucking door down.’

He shook his head. ‘You don’t learn, do you. Aiding and abetting a suspected murderer. Now that’s a serious offence.'