Dead or Alive (5 page)

She'd been delayed ten minutes by the time he managed to give her all his details. The damage was slight and her car perfectly driveable. She got back in and drove off, not realizing that every detail he'd given her was false, including his car registration number.

The two Strathmore children stood at the school gates waiting for their nanny's car to pick them up. She was normally already there and waiting for them, but not today. Then a light blue Picasso cruised past them and pulled up on a yellow line a few yards away. The teacher on gate duty tut-tutted. All parents had been told not to do that.

‘Is this car for you?' she asked.

‘Yes, it's our nanny.'

‘You must tell her not to stop on the yellow lines.'

‘Yes, Miss,' said James, amused that their nanny was in trouble with a teacher.

The children ran towards the vehicle, opened the door and clambered on to the back seats, closing the door behind them and shouting, ‘Hi Laura,' to the driver, then both taking out their iPhones.

‘You're not to stop on the yellow lines,' added James, as he tapped at the tiny screen, ‘or you'll get detention.'

The car was already under way. His sister giggled at this as she tapped at her own screen. Five minutes later an identical car parked just across the road and Laura got out. She walked over to the gate-duty teacher.

‘I'm a bit late. Some idiot crashed into me from behind. Milly and James not out yet?'

The teacher stared at her. Recognizing her as the children's nanny who, right now, should be driving them home.

‘They've …' She could hardly get the words out. ‘They've been picked up … in … er, in your car.'

‘What? My car's there.' Laura pointed at it. ‘Bit of a dent in the back but it's my car all right.'

‘I know, but another car just like that picked them up a few minutes ago.'

‘Well, it wasn't my car.'

‘Perhaps their parents have two similar cars.'

‘No, their dad's got a black Mercedes and their mother drives a white Audi. I'm the only one who drives the blue Picasso.'

The teacher clasped her hands to her face and stared in shock at the nanny, who was also looking scared.

‘Oh my god!'

They said it in unison.

Lee Dench had been driving for several minutes before the children turned their attention from their iPhones to talk to their nanny, whom they'd known all their lives. They were both probably too old for a nanny but Laura had become a family friend and undertook other duties around the house to justify her existence. James looked at Lee's reflection in the driver's mirror.

‘You're not Laura.'

‘Laura couldn't make it. I'm taking you back instead.'

Lee's limited talents didn't extend to impersonating a woman's voice – certainly not enough to fool a ten-year-old boy.

‘You're not a woman, you're a man!' James shouted.

The car stopped at traffic lights. James tried the door, but it was locked. ‘We want to get out!' he shouted.

Milly began to cry. James began to punch Lee on the back of his head as he drove away from the lights. Lee pulled in to a side road, stopped the car and turned round in his seat. He had a gun in his hand. He pointed it at Milly but spoke to James.

‘Just behave yourselves and you'll come to no harm. Kick up a fuss and I'll put a bullet right through your sister's face. Do you understand, boy?'

Both children slumped back in their seats, white-faced and terrified. Too scared to say anything.

‘That's good,' said Lee. ‘That's very good.'

I
t was good weather for the job in hand – dark, miserable, cold, drizzling. People who venture outside in such weather tend to turn their collars up and their faces down rather than check out drivers of passing cars. The Mondeo was a nondescript vehicle. As dark and dirty as the night itself. It had false plates and a quiet petrol engine which didn't attract attention with it being driven responsibly. No screeching of tyres or revving the engine that might alert a passer-by to its existence. It carried two men who both wore dark clothing – in fact boiler suits – but no hoodies or baseball caps that might make people think they were kids up to no good. It was the Irishman who asked, ‘What did Vince mean when he said we've got to put on a show? What sort of show?'

Sharky gave the question a few seconds thought. ‘One that'll scare the shit out of everyone. Dench won't be on his own. We need people to witness this – witnesses who'll be scared shitless and put the word about that you don't fuck with Vince Formosa.'

‘Shitless witness,' said Spud. ‘Poetry that.'

‘Retribution must be seen to be done,' Sharky said. ‘It's a bit like justice in a way.'

‘Who'll be with him?'

‘His woman and however many people live in that house which, I believe, is several.'

‘His woman? What's she like?'

‘Like a whore.'

‘We leave her alive, do we?'

‘We leave 'em all alive except Dench.'

‘So we shoot 'em up a bit, though … to make a show of it?'

‘We scare 'em, yeah,' Sharky said. ‘We're not here to commit mass murder. Our policemen tend to take mass murder very seriously – Human Rights and all that crap. Takin' out a dickhead like Dench is really doin' them a favour.'

‘Maybe we should send 'em a bill,' said Spud.

‘It'll be my turn to do Dench, by the way. You did the Italian.'

‘Are ye sure? I thought you did the Italian,' said Spud.

‘No, yer shot him in the back of his head while he was counting the money.

‘Agh, dat's right. Silencer job, and you ain't got no silencer for dat wild west revolver o' yours.'

‘You can't silence a revolver properly.'

‘You and yer Colt forty fuckin' five. D'yer tink yer Billy the fuckin' Kid or someone?'

‘Nah, Sundance Kid, me. In fact I think I might change my name to Sundance, wotcha think?'

‘I don't tink Sundance was no nigger,' Spud said.

‘Ackroyd Street, this is it,' said Sharky. ‘Turn left here, number seventeen, it's on the left.'

Spud drove the car down a street of decaying terraced houses. It was an area that had been designated for redevelopment twenty years ago and had since been deteriorating daily. It was a street of largely empty houses; a street no longer on the regular schedule of Leeds City Cleansing Department. Litter was abundant, as was abandoned furniture. The general detritus was animated by feral cats and scavenging rats. A few old cars were parked there, one burnt out, one with its bonnet propped open by a brush handle and one with its wheel hubs sitting on bricks; a full tank of petrol would have doubled the value of any one of them. There was a Toyota Corolla that might have been worth a couple of hundred, had it been taxed. The Irishman peered through the swishing wipers.

‘Sharky boy, dis is an awful gobshite of a street. Even I never lived in a street as bad as dis back in Limerick.'

‘It's where that Toyota's parked,' Sharky said. ‘I think that's Dench's.'

‘How do we get in?'

‘We're civilized people, we knock.'

Lee Dench was in bed with his prostitute girlfriend, whose name was Christine Prisk but she called herself Chantelle when she was working. Both of them were naked, having just had sex, and were now sharing a joint. Noise was coming from an adjacent room where three men and a woman were watching television amid a fug of cannabis fumes. Chantelle nipped out the last inch of the joint in a bedside ashtray and turned to Lee, asking him, ‘When do you get paid the rest of the copper's money?'

‘I get it in two stages. A grand when they pick Vince up, which is tomorrer, and another grand after I've given evidence.'

‘Fuck, Lee! That's peanuts and it could be months.'

‘I know, but they'll put us in a safe house. I also gerra clean slate which is more important ter me. They can't touch me fer nothin'. Shan, I've got over thirty-five grand stashed so we can move ter Spain and start over. I gorra cousin over there who's straight and well in with the locals. He'll set me up with a half share in a car sales business he's gorrin' Malaga.'

‘Thirty-five grand?'

‘Yeah. Vince might be a twat but I've made real money with him and I've been saving every penny. Why d'yer think we live in this shit'ole squat? It's because I'm not wasting no money on rent, that's why.'

‘Thirty-five grand. Where is it?'

‘It's in Barclays Bank, proper account and everything. They think I'm a used-car dealer. Which I am – well, now and again, as yer know.'

‘You never told me about no thirty-five grand.'

‘There's a lorra things I don't tell yer, Shan. Mostly it's fer yer own good. I know too much, that's my problem. I just make me money and say nowt ter nobody. Best way.'

‘Yer tell me all sorts o' stuff, Lee. Enough fer me ter grass Vince up meself. If he knew yer were turnin' him in he'd skin yer alive – literally.'

‘I know, but I can't start a new life while Vince's still on the loose, Shan. There'll be nowhere safe in the world, never mind Spain, which is only a couple of hours away. I need him and his people banged up. When the courts bang him up they'll clean him out completely. All his bank accounts, his investments, all his property, cars everything. It's the way they do things nowadays. Proceeds o' crime they call it.'

‘How d'yer know?'

‘My copper told me. They've got details of every last thing he owns, includin' how many of them flash suits he gets from Bond Street, which is fifteen apparently – two grand each. Fifteen suits at two grand each. I've just got that one what I bought from TK Maxx for fifty-two quid, the last time I was up in court.'

‘Yer looked flash in that suit, Lee. I reckon it knocked six months off yer sentence.'

‘It'll be more than two years in the nick if I get picked up as part of Vince's mob. Takin' kids isn't my fuckin' style at all, Shan.'

‘Yer'd not much ter do with it, Lee. All yer did was drive the car.'

‘I had ter wear a bloody wig ter look like a woman.'

‘There's no law against wearin' a wig.'

‘It were me who picked 'em up, disguised as a woman. They'll throw the book at me. My copper's already told me that.'

‘Them kids – what's happened to 'em?'

‘No idea. The whole thing went tits up when the cops got wind of it.'

‘Will he have killed 'em?'

‘I think he might have, Shan. It's bad stuff is that – killin' kids. That's why I'm deffo out of it. When they bang Vince up he won't have a penny ter scratch his little Maltese arse with. In this business money's power. Take away Vince's money and he becomes a loser and no one respects a loser – especially a loser who kills kids. Inside the nick he'll be two rungs down the ladder from a dog turd. Lower in the peckin' order than all them twats who take their orders from the wing's main man, who won't never be Vince fuckin' Formosa, not with him killin' them kids. I reckon he'll ask to go on the block and stay there fer his own safety.'

‘So, we both go straight? I don't have to shag any holidaymakers or Spaniards?'

‘No, only me. From now on we're straight as an arrow, both of us. Man and wife when we get there. We'll get married on a beach in our cozzies while Vince is rottin' in a cell in Wakefield nick.'

‘Bloody hell, Lee! This is scary shit.'

‘It's the only way, Shan.'

‘We'll have ter learn ter speak Spaniard.'

‘We'll pick it up before long and there's plenty of English over there, Shan.'

They didn't hear the knock on the front door.

The four in the other room were watching
Britain's Got Talent
where a dog act was impressing Simon Cowell. It was a polite knock, possibly an acquaintance come to call on one of the residents. One of the men in the other room went to answer it. On opening the door a gun was thrust in his face and he was pushed backwards until he backed into the television room.

Spud had a Glock 17, Sharky was holding a sawn-off shotgun which he aimed at the television and pulled the trigger. The 45 inch flat screen disintegrated before the noise had died away. The cannabis haze suddenly cleared from four heads as they all became alert to the mortal danger arriving in their midst. The woman screamed, as did Chantelle in the bedroom.

‘Where's Lee fuckin' Dench?' enquired Spud. ‘An' I'd like an immediate answer or I'll blow someone's fuckin' head off.'

The screaming woman pointed a shaking finger at the wall, beyond which were Lee and Chantelle, both of them now terrified. Sharky went into the hall and kicked open the bedroom door. He pointed the gun at Lee's head.

‘Out of bed, both of you.'

Chantelle tried to maintain her modesty by covering herself with a bedsheet, but Sharky dragged it off her, leaving her as naked as Lee.

She tried to cover herself with her hands. ‘Put yer hands on yer head!' Sharky said. They both did as ordered. Lee's body was littered with cheap tattoos, hard to make out, like damp newsprint. Sharky shouted at him. ‘Not you, her! Who the fuck wants to see you? Both of yer through there.'

Sharky indicated with his shotgun that they go into the next room. They did as he ordered. Both of them weeping with terror. In the next room Spud had got the occupants lined up against a wall, facing him. Lee and Chantelle were made to join them. Chantelle had a generous body and a mean face which was now distorted with fear. Sharky did all the talking.

‘Yer've gotta a snake in the grass among yer. D'yer know that?'

They all shook their heads, including Lee, who had no idea how they could have possibly found out. His sole contact in the police wouldn't have given him up. He assumed they were talking about someone else. Fucking hell! Chantelle! She was the only one who knew enough to grass on Vince. He glanced sideways at her, she was sobbing and shivering with terror. Yeah, it's definitely Chantelle. You're dead, girl! What a fucking idiot! Just when they had their getaway set up. He instinctively moved away from her.