Running Scared (36 page)

‘Not really,’ said Tig. ‘She just says we don’t need him because we’ve got each other back again now. It’s awful, Fran. She follows me round the house. She doesn’t want me to go out. If I do, she wants to come with me. If she goes out, she wants me to go with her. I had a real barney with her earlier, because I wouldn’t go to the supermarket. She’s driving me nuts. I can’t stand it. I’m going to have to leave again, Fran.’

‘Give it time!’ I urged. ‘You’ve only just got there. You can’t push off just before Christmas. It’d break your mum’s heart. She’ll calm down. Your dad will come back. He’s bound to turn up for Christmas dinner. It’s all been a shock for them. The strain’s bound to show a bit.’

‘Yeah,’ said Tig. ‘It’s doing my head in for sure. But that’s not what I’m phoning about. Look, Fran, I owe you. I know that. Even if it doesn’t work out here, it’s not your fault. You really tried. You did everything you said you’d do. If I screw up now, it’s my problem. The thing is, there’s something I wanted to tell you before, you know, before I left London, but I was scared to. I didn’t want trouble. I still don’t. But now I’m up here, away from it, it’s not so bad and anyway, like I said, I owe you.’

‘It’s something I’m not going to want to hear, isn’t it?’ I said. The last fading beam of daylight moved away from the transom above the front door as I spoke.

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘You won’t want to hear it, I reckon. But I couldn’t be easy in my mind with you not knowing.’

So she told me, as I stood there in the darkening hallway, with Bonnie sitting at my feet and Daphne tapping away at her old upright in the background.

Chapter Eighteen

Jason Harford arrived just before seven. He’d changed out of the suit and was back in chinos with a casual shirt and leather jacket. He stood on Daphne’s doorstep in the lamplight, with his hands in his pockets, smiling at me.

‘You look nice,’ he said. It must have been Joleen’s lipstick.

I told him he looked pretty good himself, which was true.

‘So, can I come in?’

‘Sure.’ I stood aside to let him pass. He hesitated in the doorway and leaned forward as if he was going to kiss me, but I slipped past him to close the door.

‘No landlady?’ he asked glancing around.

‘Gone to see a friend, be back later.’

He wandered down the hall, studying the pictures and knickknacks. ‘It’s been a great day,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘You’ve no idea how much Foxley’s wanted to nail Grice. Grice is denying ordering anyone to kill Coverdale, of course. He says his “former associate”, as he puts it, panicked and stuck the poor guy. After that, says Grice, he gave the killer his marching orders and doesn’t know, surprise, surprise, where to find him now. Still, we’ve got Grice himself and he’ll be angling soon to cut a deal. It’s looking good. The super’s as pleased as punch. I told you he’s normally a sour old git. Right now, he’s dancing on the ceiling.’

‘Got it sewn up, then,’ I said. ‘Congrats.’ I hadn’t meant to sound frosty, but I did.

‘Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean anyone’s going to make any deals with Grice,’ he went on hastily, ‘but it’s been made clear it’s in his interest to co-operate. He knows he’s going to gaol, but he doesn’t want to stay there any longer than he has to. The other guy, the one with the ponytail, has a record of violent offences and my guess is, he’ll talk if Grice doesn’t. There’s a way to go yet but we’ll get there.’

‘No honour among thieves,’ I said.

‘Lord, no!’ Harford looked quite shocked. ‘Every villain I’ve ever come across would double-cross his own grandma.’ He tapped the Victorian barometer, something Daphne had told me you shouldn’t do. It upset it. ‘You should listen to them volunteer to squeal when the heat’s turned up.’ He pointed to the barometer. ‘Just like this. Guaranteed to be affected by current conditions.’

I wondered just how many villains he had met. His meteoric rise through the ranks to date, which niggled Parry so much, didn’t seem to me the best way to build up a close acquaintance with the criminal world. In textbooks, maybe. In the flesh, less so.

Now, Parry, who had met hundreds of crooks in his day, would probably have said many villains were good family men, crime being their gainful employment, as they’d see it, and their families being chips off the old block. We’re talking the professionals, of course, and not the bash-old-ladies brigade whom most of the regular type would abhor.

‘That sort,’ Parry had told me once, ‘and the pervs who meddle with little kids or murder ’em you wouldn’t believe how difficult it is to protect ’em from the other prisoners, once they get inside.’

It also crossed my mind, as I listened to my companion’s optimistic forecast, that Parry would also have shown less confidence in the judicial system’s ability to put Grice away. Perhaps Harford was showing a little lack of experience there, too.

If so, it wasn’t the moment to suggest it to him. He’d abandoned the barometer. ‘Time to go out and celebrate. I thought we might try the Italian place again. The food’s good and this time, we might manage to talk.’ He grinned.

‘We need to talk,’ I said. ‘But perhaps we ought to do it here before we go out.’

He raised his eyebrows.

‘You said,’ I reminded him, ‘that you’d explain to me why Grice was so anxious to get the negs back.’

‘Oh, that, sure. I owe you the full story. You’re right. We don’t want to be talking shop over the spaghetti.’

‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘Come in the kitchen.’

At some point during the day Daphne had cracked open another bottle. It stood on the shelf with the cork sticking out at an angle. It was a Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon. I was going to have to keep my eye on Daphne. Among the bottles I’d taken to the bottle bank earlier, had been wines from France, Germany, Australia, Bulgaria and California. Daphne was making a boozer’s world tour. I poured Jason a glass and half a glass for me and we settled down, either side of the big pine table. He picked up his glass and held it up in salute. I gestured towards mine but didn’t pick it up.

‘This is a nice kitchen,’ Harford said approvingly. ‘Mind you, this is a bloody good house. I thought so when I first came here – and met you. I’m not surprised the two old boys are after it. Any more trouble with them, by the way?’

‘I think,’ I said, ‘they’ve been dealt with for the time being.’

‘That’s all right, then. I told you not to worry.’ He leaned on the table. ‘I remember that evening very clearly, when I first came here. I’ve thought about it a lot.’

‘You looked at me,’ I said, ‘as if I’d been scraped up out of a blocked drain.’

‘I was scared of you,’ he said. ‘You looked so tough and assured. It wasn’t long, of course, before I rumbled your true nature.’ He raised his glass again.

‘My true nature,’ I told him, ‘is to be awkward, obstinate and bloody-minded. Nor am I about to forget that I was treated by your lot in all this as though I were expendable.’

‘Hey!’ he protested. ‘That’s not true! I admit we weren’t as efficient as we might have been, all the time, but no one wanted
you
harmed. You know
I
didn’t, don’t you?’

‘I don’t suppose any of you wanted me harmed,’ I said. ‘Because without me, you wouldn’t have got your hands on Grice.’

He pushed the glass aside. ‘We’re grateful, all right? But we were reasonably confident that, sooner or later, we’d find Grice.’

No, you weren’t, I thought, but he could safely claim so now.

‘It might have been a
lot
later, mind you,’ he was saying, ‘and we were bracing ourselves for that. But, you know, in the end a man like that has to break cover. Damn it, Fran, what’s the use of the money if he can’t spend it and live life to the full?’

‘They never found Lord Lucan,’ I pointed out. ‘And when it came to tracking down Grice, poor Coverdale did an awful lot better than you. He did find the man.’

‘And once he’d done it, he should have come straight to us!’ Harford was getting nettled at all this criticism. ‘If he had, he’d be alive today. And look here, Fran, we’re saddled with always having to go through official channels. Coverdale got his information by God knows what means not open to us!’

I decided I’d made my point and could let it go. ‘So where was Grice all the time? Where were the snaps taken?’ I asked.

Harford’s irritation was replaced by a smug grin. ‘Cuba!’ he said and laughed at my expression. ‘On the level. I can see you think it’d be the last place on earth, but you’ve got to update your ideas. The leisure industry shifts huge sums of money around the world. In and out of different currencies, developing one playground for the rich after another. Grice may have first thought of Florida as a place to invest his money, but the Americans are canny. They don’t like unknowns who turn up with huge sums to invest and no track record. They suspect organised crime and would’ve rumbled Grice straight away.

‘So Grice looked around and saw Cuba. They desperately need hard currency. Cuba’s broke but ambitious, keen to develop its tourist industry. The country’s so run down it’s having to start from scratch but it’s making up for lost time. It’s already getting to be the in place to holiday. The jet set are going out there for sun and sea. Everywhere else is getting overrun with plebs and package tours. If you’ve got a lot of money and you want to spend some of it in Cuba, they’ll be delighted to see you and prepared to make sure you have the holiday of a lifetime. So when Grice turned up under a different identity, and proposed a joint venture in the tourist market for which he’d put up the bulk of the finance, they didn’t ask too many questions of him. He was what they’d been waiting for. Officially, capitalism is still out of favour. But Grice knew how to present his package. He claimed to be a wealthy European socialist. There are several French and Italian communist millionaires. The Cubans bought that, or pretended to. He was wined and dined, lodged in a government guest house – which was where Coverdale ran him to earth and, at a guess, bribed a servant to take those snaps.’

‘And was about to tell the world where Grice was doing business.’ I frowned. ‘It was risky for Coverdale, but I’d have thought Cuba a high-risk investment for Grice.’

Harford spread his hands. ‘Hey, before the revolution, fortunes were made in Havana out of hotels, casinos, nightclubs . . . Some pretty shady operators ran much of it then. Grice meant to run it this time round. The Cubans probably hoped his involvement meant otherwise; they want tourists but not the bad old days back again. Grice played that up. He presented himself as a financier with sound principles. Not just a money man and definitely not the Mob – which is what the Cubans would have been most worried about. No, he was a regular Mr Clean.’

I thought about this. ‘So you’ve got Grice,’ I said. ‘And you think you know where he’s stashed the money. But that’s not the same thing as getting it back, is it?’

‘Give us time,’ said Harford with confidence.

I thought privately that the only one getting time would be Grice. But they couldn’t lock him up for ever, even if they did manage to pin responsibility for Coverdale’s murder on him. Good lawyers (which Grice must have) would make sure they had trouble doing that. No lawyer, and I doubted any accountant, could get that money back. Grice wasn’t an old man. I judged him forty-two or -three at the most. He could sit it out. Besides I still wouldn’t have put money on his definitely going to gaol. Maybe the authorities would get lucky. Maybe Grice would.

I had other things on my mind. So did Harford, who was in buoyant mood. ‘Are you ready to go out and eat yet?’

‘Not just yet.’ I leaned my elbows on the table. ‘Parry says you’re destined for fast-track promotion. I suppose you’re already on your way.’

He looked surprised. ‘Why bring that up now?’

‘Perhaps you should have thought about a different career,’ I said.

He frowned, puzzled and a little angry. ‘What are you on about, Fran? You’re not one of these people with a down on the police, are you? The last thing I’d have thought you was bigoted! I suppose you’ve not always seen eye to eye with authority. I can understand that, but hell, that’s not my fault. I know we met over a professional matter, but from now on, couldn’t you try and see me as a normal person?’

‘I’ll always have difficulty,’ I said. ‘My problem is this. I’ll always have in my mind that girl you and your two mates kidnapped over by King’s Cross, took to the house belonging to one of you, held there for at least two hours and raped.’

I didn’t think a room could go as quiet as that kitchen. The only noise was the faintest zizz from the fridge. All colour had gone from Harford’s face, draining out as I watched.