Shroud of Concealment (Jake Dillon Adventure Thriller Series) (13 page)

“Well, I’ve no idea. But what a senseless and completely unnecessary thing to do, killing her like that. I can’t believe this is happening. I made sure Issy was tucked away because she was too vulnerable. But I never imagined that they would start on innocent people who have absolutely no connection to this assignment, if only because of the risk. And all of this is happening because they want me stopped. My God. This isn’t Charlie Hart, you know?”

“Then you must know a lot more than you think you do, old son.”

“Or they have something much bigger to hide than I realised.”

Dillon gazed out across the noisy bar in exasperation.

“They’re not going to be happy until they’ve got rid of me once and for all. And as for backing off, well I’ve come this far and I’m bloody sure as hell not going to stop now.”

“That’s the spirit, old son. I smell a very big rat somewhere in all of this, so you do what you have to do.”

LJ fought back the urge to light the Slim Panatella cigar he was rolling between his forefinger and thumb. Since the smoking ban in public areas had come into force, his life had been made intolerable; except for in the sanctity of his car interior and his London apartment. Both, as yet, not infringed upon by the controlling Government of the day.

“If you see Adam Finch, give him my regards and tell him that I will find those thugs who put him in hospital.”

LJ nodded and Dillon suddenly moved sideways off his seat and out of the booth.

“It’s not safe for anyone to be around me at the moment, so I think it best that no one knows where I’m staying here in London. If I have to go back down to Dorset, I’ll go to that apartment you’ve rented. I’m pretty sure they haven’t discovered that yet.” He realised that he was isolating himself almost completely now.

Before they left the Black Dog, Dillon called Issy. Her voice was sleepy and her tone tetchy at being woken up. He told her that the assignment was going as expected and that it should only be a few more days before she could go back to her normal life. When she told him that she really did have to get back to her office or she’d be hauled up in front of the senior partners, he told her coldly that there was no way that she could do that. He hung up before she could argue the point.

He walked outside, leant against a wall and took deep breaths to calm himself. After all of the reassurances he’d given her, he’d managed to destroy the safety zone he’d built up for her with just one cold outburst. But she couldn’t go back to where they could easily pick her up.

“You sure you’re okay, old son?” LJ asked as he stood beside him. The flare of the match, as he lit his cigar, accentuated the older man’s angular features.

Dillon shook his head. “Even if I could get them to back down they wouldn’t call off their hounds, because they’ve obviously got something major to hide and they’re petrified that I’m going to find out what it is. But what they don’t realise, is that I haven’t got a clue what it is.”

Before walking back to the parked Ford he made one more call.

“Stella? It’s Dillon. Listen carefully and don’t argue, just listen to what I’m going to tell you. Why should you? Because I believe that you’re in grave danger and it’s probably a good idea for you to get out of town for a while. Listen, don’t argue. If you’ve got an aunt in the country or down by the sea, then go and visit her. Oh, and don’t tell anyone where you’re going. Not even Paul.”

Dillon hung up abruptly to see LJ looking at him.

“I’m assuming that was Hammer’s woman? The one you went to see earlier today?”

“Yes. She’s a nice lady, I’d hate her to get caught up in this thing and wind up dead. That’s all.”

He said goodbye to LJ and went back to the Ford. He got in and sat behind the wheel for a moment, eventually dialling Dunstan Havelock’s home number. As Havelock picked up the receiver, Dillon activated the voice scrambler just as a precaution, should anyone be listening.

Havelock listened without interruption whilst Dillon told him about the day’s events. How the police were by now looking for him as well as Charlie Hart, and that he wanted Havelock to sort out the problem with the police. Whilst he attended to Hart, he gave him the car registration number that Vince had taken from Dillon’s watchful old neighbour across the street to trace, and told him that he would ring back in twenty minutes. He hung up before Havelock could answer.

Havelock might now find himself in a very awkward position. Dillon drove around for a while, then parked in a quiet side street down by the river. He got out and stretched his legs for a bit by walking a short distance along the embankment. The fresh air always cleared his head and made him think straight. As he walked he thought that Havelock had nothing to complain about. He shouldn’t have started this in the first place and that it was far too late now to shy away from what was inevitably going to happen over the next few days.

Dillon finally fell into bed at 3 a.m. It was a seedy boarding house near Piccadilly, and he wasn’t planning on staying there for more than a night or two. Other than what he was wearing, he had no clothes. It had been one hell of a day! He fell asleep the instant his head hit the pillow. His last thoughts were that it smelt damp and a little musty.

* * *

Dillon woke as soon as it was light. After showering, he felt a lot more alive than he did hours before. He skipped breakfast at the boarding house and instead went to a small café near the London Eye, owned by an old friend of LJ’s. He ate a full English breakfast with two rashers of bacon, two eggs, two sausages, baked beans, grilled tomatoes, button mushrooms and two pieces of traditional black pudding. He washed it down with a mug of steaming hot tea, with toast and jam to finish.

It was too soon to go back to his apartment, so he decided to take a chance on returning to Max Quinn, conscious of the risk factor involved for both Max and himself.

Max had worked long into the night. Like most good professionals, once the job was under way he couldn’t stop until he’d seen it through to the end. Dillon studied the identity card with a magnifying glass: Investigator Robert King; a work of art.

“What about the Monet?” asked Max, as Dillon was about to go out the door.

“Keep it safe for me until I call back for it.”

“Thanks, Max; you’ve done a great job.”

He left that area of the city as fast as he could. The address Havelock had sent to him in a text message was in East London. The street was behind an ugly block of flats that, since being built in the late nineteen sixties, had steadily fallen beyond being a run-down slum, and was now a dark and dangerous ghetto.

The street was short, comprising terraced houses from beginning to end. He found number fourteen, and noticed an old Vauxhall Vectra parked almost directly in front of the house. The registration number matched the one the old lady had written down. He rapped hard with his clenched fist on the weathered front door, but heard nothing from inside. He knocked loudly again on the flaking paintwork.

The curtains twitched in the front room, but nobody came. Dillon hammered on the door; his intention was to make so much noise that the whole street would hear if it was not opened.

From somewhere inside, a man’s voice shouted angrily at Dillon.

“What the hell are you playing at, you piece of shit? You’ll break the bloody door down!”

A moment later, the door was opened and a man stood there in open-neck shirt, black trousers, and highly polished leather shoes. He was big and thick-set, well-muscled, somewhere in his early fifties.

“I was just taking a leak. What do want?”

“Are you the owner of that car?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Well, I do. You see, I’ve just hit the side of it and I thought I’d do the right thing and come and tell the owner. But if you’re not the owner...” Dillon left the words hanging.

“What, you’ve hit my car?”

The big man went to step forward, Dillon was anticipating that would be his reaction and taking him by surprise, barged him back through the doorway. Using the heel of his shoe, he slammed the door closed. The big man took a wild punch at Dillon’s head, which he easily moved away from and countered with a hard punch to the man’s nose. Blood instantaneously started to pour down over his stubble chin and onto the white shirt.

“Who the hell are you, and what do you want?”

“Get this and get it the first time: I ask the questions. All that you have to do is answer them, right?”

“Piss off, or I’ll rip your head off and flush it down the toilet.”

In the time it takes a cobra to strike, Dillon’s flattened palm made contact with the left side of his head. The big man immediately started to scream. The instantaneous pain from the perforated ear drum was excruciating and all he could do was hold his flattened hand against the already-swollen flesh and hop around in circles.

“Now that I’ve got your undivided attention, that car of yours was seen outside an apartment building near the embankment and then again later outside a house on the other side of the river. On the first occasion, you were spotted, at the very same time, a man was brutally beaten in one of the apartments. On the second where a young prostitute was found murdered. Coincidence or just amateurish bad luck that you were spotted?”

The hard eyes went blank.

“Someone nicked it last night. I only found it this morning just round the corner from here. Must have been those bloody joy riders again, happens all the time.”

He’d produced a white handkerchief and was now holding that against his throbbing ear.

Unimpressed, Dillon said, “Let’s go and sit down in the front room.”

They went into the small room. Some trophies lined the mantelpiece, one of a boxer on a highly polished wooden plinth. It was quite a pleasant room. Dillon motioned for the big man to sit on a chair by the window.

“Is your wife in?”

“I’m divorced. My girlfriend’s at work.”

“Why am I not surprised that you’re divorced. After all, I doubt if you’ve done an honest day’s work in the entirety of your miserable life. Your girlfriend brings home the bacon, whilst you sit around with your feet up all day. Nice.”

“You’re asking for trouble, mate.”

“So there’s no one else in at the moment?”

“And no witnesses to see you get done over either.”

Dillon took his time gazing around the room, letting the silence and the tension build up; there is nothing more unnerving if someone has something to hide. He walked round the room, peering at this and that on shelves and in glass-fronted cabinets.

“So don’t you want to know who I am anymore, Bull-Dog?” Dillon asked suddenly, taking the man whose name was Alf ‘Bull-Dog’ Fletcher, by surprise.

“I know who you are, you crazy bastard. Why don’t you do the human race a favour? Top yourself.”

“I’m impressed that you’re able to string a sentence like that together, Bull-Dog. But I’m afraid I can’t do that. Look, I’m going to make this a little easier for you.”

Dillon pulled out the Glock from its shoulder holster and quickly screwed the silencer in place.

“You think that’s going to scare me into blabbing, do you?”

“Oh, it’s not to scare you with, Bull-Dog. It’s most definitely to kill you with.” Dillon shrugged nonchalantly at the other man.

“Get stuffed. Look, I’m still none the wiser as to why you’re bothering me with all of this. You’ve quite obviously got the wrong car and person.”

“You know exactly what this is all about and I definitely haven’t got the wrong person. You and your buddy beat somebody up yesterday. Drove across the river and murdered an innocent young prostitute, leaving her to be found on a bed in a house I was staying in. You were seen with this other man entering and then leaving both properties.”

Dillon lied easily about the safe-house murder just to see what reaction he got from him.

Dillon stood by the mantelpiece and using the silenced barrel of the Glock, slowly swept the heavy trophies off; each one landed with a heavy thud on to the carpeted floor. Bull-Dog reacted angrily, went to stand up only to be met with a pistol whipping across the side of his face. Blood immediately flowed freely from the long gash.

“The thing is this, Bull-Dog: I can carry on working you over for as long as it takes and you blackout, or you can simply tell me what I want to know and I’ll leave without any further nastiness. Oh, there is a third option. I can call a friend of mine who just happens to be a Detective Chief Inspector in the serious crime unit.

Bull-Dog just managed to stop himself from striking Dillon. He had sufficient sense to grasp that he was being deliberately set up to be knocked right back down again, and then a question entered his mind.

“Who are you really working for, Dillon?”

Dillon ignored his question, and asked, “Look, I don’t know who would want to employ trailer trash like you. But you’d better understand that you’re going to take the rap for carrying out someone else’s orders. Was it Tommy Trevelyan?”

“Don’t be stupid. Tommy Trevelyan wouldn’t give me the time of day.”

For Dillon that was tantamount to an admission. “Perhaps one of his associates then?”

Bull-Dog came closer. “You’re not very smart, are you? I didn’t beat anybody up. And if you go round talking of Tommy Trevelyan like that, you’ll be making a premature departure from this world. Now piss off.”

“Okay. But, the moment I leave here, I’m going to start spreading it around in certain circles that you’ve been accusing Tommy of setting you up for a spell inside. Now that should make him really happy.”

Dillon had been waiting for it from the moment the big man had regained his confidence. Bull-Dog swung a blow at his head and Dillon responded in the way he’d been taught over many years. Bull-Dog struck air and something hard hit him in the stomach with immense force, leaving him curled up in a great deal of pain, face down and barely able to get his breath. Dillon roughly flipped him on to his side with his foot.“Was it one of Trevelyan’s people?”

But Bull-Dog was still not capable of talking; he was still curled up and groaning with pain.

Dillon stood back from him, watching carefully for any feigning. When his breathing became more regular he asked again, “Was it one of Trevelyan’s crowd?”

When there was still no answer, Dillon squatted on his haunches and pulled out the Glock again. He tapped Bull-Dog’s broken nose with it, just hard enough to draw blood.

“The bloke you beat to a pulp is a good friend of mine. Now you’re in the frame for actual bodily harm, but if he dies, it’s murder. That’s along with the murder of that unfortunate young woman. That should get you at least two life sentences and definitely no possibility of release. Ever. However, if I don’t get an answer now then I’m going to blow your brains out, because I don’t trust the courts and nobody is going to be bothered by your death.” He toyed with the Glock.

The big man’s eyes flickered with fear. He started to say something but gagged and Dillon waited, moving away again.

Bull-Dog was trying to think clearly as he came out of the pain. Before he was able to say anything Dillon added, “Before I put a bullet in your thick skull I’m going to make you suffer even more by slicing off both of your ears. You’ll beg me for the bullet before it comes; it’ll be merciful, an end that you’re not really worthy of. But I’m feeling generous today.”