Numb: A Dark Thriller (5 page)

“Parked downstairs,” he said.

“What make is it?”

“A Nissan Micra.”

Oh, we parked next to you. Isn’t that a coincidence!

“How much is it worth?” Riley asked.

“Probably about a grand. It’s a few years old. But I need it for work.”

“You said your wife’s out shopping. Doesn’t she have a car?”

“No, she’s with her sister. She drives.”

“So you only have the Nissan?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’ll have to walk to walk to work in future,” Riley told him. It sounded cruel, but if they didn’t take the car then his kids would come back to a father who looked like he’d been run over by one. Howden was keen to dish out some punishment and taking the car was the only way to keep him at bay. “Get the keys. We’ll take the Nissan and give you another month to come up with the rest of the money.”

“But there’s other stuff you can take,” Moore said. “The DVD player!”

“They’re worth nothing.”

“Then... my wife has some jewellery she wouldn’t miss. My son has a games console. And my daughter has a laptop-”

As soon as the children were mentioned, that was it for Riley. Enough was enough. Moore didn’t deserve any more lenience. He deserved another slap for being so selfish.

He nodded at Howden, who quickly pulled Moore to his feet, grabbed him by the throat and slammed him into the nearest wall. Then he jabbed him two more times in the stomach.

Moore doubled over, drool hanging from his mouth as he tried to regain even more lost breath.

“This is
your
debt,” Riley said. “Not your family’s. They didn’t make you waste your wages betting on horses and dogs and down the casino. We’ll take your car. Okay?”

Moore reluctantly agreed (what else could he do with Howden holding him by the throat) and fetched the keys and log book from the kitchen when Howden finally let go of him.

“See you in a month for the next payment,” Riley said, although he knew Moore would be in the same situation in thirty days time. In fact, he’d be in the same situation for the rest of his life unless he had a lot of luck with one of his bets that he wouldn’t be able to resist staking. But at least he’d survived
this
visit.

Once outside, Riley tossed Howden the keys to the Nissan.

“You drive that. I’ll meet you back at the club.” He then saw Moore’s kids on the way back from the shop, laden with chocolate bars and crisps. They idled up to him innocently.

“Thanks for the sweets,” the girl said, smiling.

“You’re welcome,” Riley told her as Howden spun away in the Nissan.

“Hey, that’s dad’s car,” the boy said, his mouth full of chocolate.

“He’s lending us it for a little while,” Riley said. “You two be good for your dad, okay.” He unlocked the Mercedes and opened the door.

“Thanks again,” the girl said. She waved as she and her brother headed inside the tower block where they’d find their father recovering from his minor beating and having to put on a brave face and pretend everything was alright until his wife came home and he’d have to explain where the family transport had disappeared to.

Riley slid behind the wheel of the Mercedes, feeling like the lowest form of scum. Today had gone well, all things considering. Apart from Moore’s little roughing up no one had gotten hurt. All in all, it had been a bad job well done.

Yet it still wasn’t enough.

As he headed back to the city centre, Riley knew he’d have to do a lot more to redeem himself for what he and the rest of Nash’s mob had done in the past.

6

Riley pulled into the car park at the back of Twilight Nightclub fifteen minutes later and parked next to Moore’s Nissan. Howden was leaning against it, a cupped hand around his cigarette, protecting it from the first spots of rain that had begun to fall.

Riley climbed out the Merc and Howden tossed him the car keys.

“I’ll let you sort everything with Nash,” he said. “I’m off. See you tonight.” With that, Howden walked to his own car parked a few bays up, hitching his collar up against the potential downpour and coolly flicking his cigarette away like he didn’t have a care in the world.

Riley climbed the outside stairs and used his pass-card to get through the staff door and into the narrow, gloomy corridor inside. A few seconds later, as he was passing the security office which he assumed to be empty, a mock-deep voice called out, “Sorry, mate. No tie, no entry.”

Riley stopped. Stuck his head in the small room.

“You think I’d choose to drink in a dump like this?” he asked the man sitting in front of the computer and security monitors.

Dylan Purvis smiled, got up from his seat and shook Riley’s hand.

“No, me neither.”

Purvis, at forty-one, was a few years older than Riley and didn’t look like the sort of person you’d expect to be involved with Mike Nash. He was average height, probably weighed less than twelve stone and, as far as Riley knew, had never had a fight in his life. But he hadn’t had to. He and Nash had known each other from a young age and both men had learned early on that they could be helpful to each other.

Apparently, when he was a teenager, Purvis had been a straight A student who had an almost unhealthy interest in electronics and early computers and very little else. He shunned sports and the joys of playground ruff-and-tumble, and those things combined with him being an only child to hippy parents (
Dylan? What kind of name’s that?
) had made him an easy target for the bullyboys in the tough working-class comprehensive. Nash, on the other hand, could barely read by his teens but he had talents in other areas. He taxed other kids of their cigarettes and sold them for a profit, stole exam papers and charged others their dinner money for a few answers and soon built up a reputation as the school’s tough guy by fighting rival gangs – all while his schoolwork suffered.  After more than one threat of being expelled (a move which he welcomed but his parents would see red over) he had to find a solution and he soon saw the potential in the little bookworm in his class. Nash offered Purvis a deal; sit next to him in class and help him with tricky questions, awkward sums and long words, do his homework and coursework and no one would call him another name, trip him in the corridors or wedgy him in the toilets ever again. He’d be protected. Purvis agreed and the arrangement worked brilliantly for both boys. Nash made it through school (although he failed every exam) and Purvis became untouchable.

Once out of the comp both young men could’ve walked away and lived separate lives but, for some reason, they’d stayed in touch. Purvis went to college and Nash began his life of crime but they would regularly meet up for a drink and a chat. Maybe, in a strange way, both were envious of the other’s talents. Maybe Purvis would have loved to be as ruthless and as feared as Nash and maybe Nash was jealous of Purvis’s brains. Whatever the reason, a quarter of a century since their school days had ended, their roles were the same. Nash was the hard-man boss and Purvis was his employee who now carried some ridiculous job title like ‘Security Consultant’ when in simple fact all he did was maintain the electronic security systems installed in Nash’s premises. But Riley was glad of Purvis’s employment within the firm. He liked the fact that there was at least one other bloke in the upper echelons of Nash’s workforce who wasn’t a violent nutcase.

“What’re you doing here,” Riley asked him. “I thought you’d be getting ready for tonight, like everyone else.”

“I’m already ready,” Purvis said, showing off his new suit. “Anyway, Nash wanted me to do a couple of things for him a.s.a.p. Remember the trouble last night?”

Riley nodded.

Nash owned two nightclubs, three pubs and one restaurant. Twilight nightclub was his baby, the first business he’d bought and the busiest club in the city. Last night, around midnight, two doormen had gotten into an altercation with a customer carrying drugs (someone who
wasn’t
on Nash’s payroll) and had really messed him up. Riley, thanks to his position as head doorman, had helped convince the police that the bouncers had been attacked first and had been defending themselves. He found out later that it wasn’t really true, but what could he do, shop two of his staff to the police? Of course not. Despite his disliking of a lot of things involved in his job, he couldn’t act out of character. And anyway, the guy they’d battered really
had
been carrying drugs with the obvious intent to sell and therefore deserved to get a hiding (admittedly, not as savage a one as he’d received) and so lying to the police had been made that little bit easier.

After the man had been knocked unconscious and looked to be really hurt the doormen had gotten worried. So one of them had fetched a sharp knife from the club’s kitchen, got the bloke’s prints on it and left it by his prone body before the police arrived. See officer, he came at us with a knife! We had no choice! Problem solved.

Or so they’d thought.

“The police have requested the security footage and are sending a detective for it tomorrow,” Purvis said, beckoning Riley over to the computer screen. “You know what the doormen told the police. They said they’d frisked him as he tried to get in the club and when they found the drugs he got edgy and a scuffle broke out. Then he pulled out a knife and what they did to him was self defence.”

“Simple scenario,” Riley said, nodding. “Not unheard of.”

“Pity it was bullshit,” Purvis said. “And it was all caught on tape.”

Purvis clicked a button on the mouse and the security footage from outside the club the previous night filled the screen. There was no sound and the picture was black and white and slightly hazy, but the images could be made out well enough.

The doormen could be seen arguing with a young man dressed in a stripy shirt. He looked drunk and was acting aggressively as one of the doormen began to search him. When the scuffle broke out the man started to throw a few decent punches at Tony Devlin, the smaller of the two doormen. Then Harry Knight, Devlin’s colleague, waded in and the fight moved off to the left of the screen. Both men knew the limits of the cameras installed outside the club and obviously knew where to go to get out of sight of them. Only the man didn’t let them get that far and as he finally realised he wasn’t going to win against two bigger men and was about to make a run for it, Knight decked him with a wicked right hook that almost took the poor sod’s head off. Then Devlin, obviously pissed off that he hadn’t been able to take the man out by himself, kicked the bloke in the head four times. Luckily this had happened late on and there wasn’t a queue of customers witnessing it who could testify and leave both Knight and Devlin without a leg to stand on in court.

“As you can see,” Purvis said, “it quite clearly shows the bloke didn’t have a knife and Devlin and Knight didn’t do this off camera. It’s lucky the police didn’t request the recording before now. At least I’ve had time to work on it.”

“Nash got you doing a little job ‘off the record’, has he?” Riley asked. That’s how Nash referred to it. ‘Off the record’ was Purvis being asked to put his computer skills to use for illegal means; hacking; spying; manipulating evidence. No one who worked for Nash was totally legit. He wouldn’t allow it.

“Watch.” Purvis ejected the disc, inserted another and tapped a button on the mouse. Seconds later, a second piece of footage began to run.

At first Riley thought it was identical to the first, but then he noticed that this time the figures were slightly larger than on the previous recording.

He watched as the doormen frisked the man again. Saw the scuffle break out, move off to the left...

And all three men disappeared off screen before Knight had even thrown the punch that began the brutal assault.

“Clever, clever,” Riley said.

“Nash doesn’t pay me for nothing,” Purvis said. “I enlarged everything by ten percent apart from the time counter in the bottom corner. The whole incident’s off-screen, cut and deleted, and I doubt the police will have the footage analysed to see if it’s been tampered with. They’ll just take it as gospel. This now won’t prove or disprove anything. It’ll be his word against the doormen’s.” Purvis stopped the footage and ejected the disc. “That’s when he can talk again. Devlin and Knight broke his jaw – amongst other things. Anyway, why are you here so early?”

“Just finished a few jobs myself.” Riley pulled out the envelopes full of cash. “Time to see the boss.”

“Hold on, I’ll come with you,” Purvis said. He snapped the disc containing the original recording in half and dumped it in the bin. Then he grabbed the doctored disc and a second one that lay beside the computer, shoving them both into cases. He got to his feet, buttoned his suit jacket and ran a hand through his short brown hair to make sure every strand was in place.

“You seem a bit over keen to see him,” Riley said.

“It’s not Nash I want to see.”

“Oh, of course not.” Riley smiled, feeling sympathy for his friend. The situation he was in was tragic. It was his own fault – but tragic. “I take it both of them are here.”

“They’re decorating the place for tonight. Well, Sandra is, Wendy’s just running around excited.”

Riley grinned at the thought.

“Then let’s go.”

Both men headed along the corridor. They passed the staff changing rooms and toilets, and the kitchen that was missing one knife, and finally went through another pass-card operated door that led into the large circular room that was the main heart of the club.

It was brighter in here, the many overhead lights blasting out thousands of watts of illumination. Although Twilight was the city’s most popular club, the fixtures and fittings looked tatty in the light. You could see every rip and stain on every seat and where paint and plaster had been scraped and chipped from the walls. The marks on the dance-floor where it had been dented by thousands of heels over the years stood out for all to see. No wonder nightclubs were always dark inside, and Riley knew that by eight tonight, when the party started, Twilight would be the same, the overhead lights replaced by the softer wall lights that would hide the club’s many signs of wear and tear.

On the other side of the dance floor that dominated the centre of the room, three women were hanging banners and balloons and blown-up photographs. One of the women Riley and Purvis knew well. The other two were Nash’s sisters and they’d only met them a handful of times. Nash wasn’t close to any of his relatives but they’d all been invited tonight as the occasion was the highlight of the year. On the DJ’s platform, two men were connecting up speakers and a turntable for the entertainment later. Across from them, the buffet table had already been set and the odour of party food mixed with the scent of floor cleaner and furniture polish lingered. On the wall behind the buffet table, in large coloured letters, was a sign which read:

HAPPY 21
st
MICHAEL JUNIOR

Riley and Purvis made it halfway across the dance floor when a small voice made them stop.

“
Uncky Dywan! Uncky Dywan!”

The little girl carrying the balloon ran up to them. Purvis, his face lit with joy, scooped her up and planted a loud kiss on her cheek.

Wendy giggled. She was Nash’s second child (on paper only, Riley knew) and was already dressed in her pink outfit for tonight and her blonde hair was tied in short pigtails. She had just turned two, had not long started talking and was still having problems with L’s and R’s. Although Riley sometimes struggled to understand her, he was sure he’d never heard a cuter voice in all his life. To her, Purvis was
uncky Dywan
and was the only one of Nash’s men who Wendy referred to as ‘uncle’. It was a pity the truth wasn’t known as it would be easier for Wendy to pronounce the word ‘dad’.

“What have you been doing, Sweety?” Purvis asked her, pointing to the balloon.

“Hewping Mum.” Wendy pointed to one of the women who was hanging balloons. The one with the blonde hair and slim figure accentuated by the burgundy dress.

Sandra Wade had been in a relationship with Nash for four years but still went by her maiden name as marriage had never been on the cards. She was a stunning looking woman of thirty-six, five years younger than Nash. Tonight, in front of the other guests, they would act as if their relationship was solid. In private, however, Riley knew that cracks bigger than the ones in Twilight’s walls had appeared in their relationship even before Wendy came along out of the blue.

Riley noticed Purvis staring over at Sandra as he held Wendy. Then Sandra, as if sensing eyes on her, looked over her shoulder. She smiled at him, the longing in her eyes giving away her most guarded secret. The look was blatantly the way a mother would stare lovingly at her beautiful child with her loving father; a caring, sentimental and far away gaze.

She quickly looked away and continued decorating the room for the party as one of Nash’s sisters struck up a conversation with her.