The Driver (29 page)

He’d been about to leave then but he’d peeked out through the spyhole first – just in time to see Eddie and Carl coming out of Eddie’s flat and going into Chrissie’s, carrying something that looked suspiciously like a body. Although he couldn’t be sure about that, because the lighting in the corridor outside was so dim and the spyhole lens was dirty enough to distort his view.

Still watching as they went back into Eddie’s flat, Joe jumped when Katya wandered into the hall behind him and asked what he was doing.

‘Nothing,’ he told her. ‘Just saw someone going home down the landing, so I thought I’d best wait till they’d gone.’

It was a lie but Katya was already terrified and he didn’t want to alarm her by telling her what he’d just seen – or
thought
he’d seen. Because if it
had
been a body then the chances were it would be that of one of her friends. And God only knew how she’d react if she thought that Eddie had found one of them already.

‘I’d best get going,’ he said now, thinking that he needed to make his move while Eddie’s door was closed. ‘Just stay quiet. And try to get some sleep if you can because this might take a while. And it’s probably safer if I don’t come back up until I’ve found somewhere to take you,’ he added. ‘But you’ve got my number, so give me a ring if you get worried. Okay?’

Nodding, Katya stayed in the living-room doorway and wrung her hands together as she watched Joe leave. He was trying to conceal his nervousness but she could feel it coming off him in waves and that did nothing to quell her own fears. She was already beginning to think that she would never get out of here alive.

Jumping when the cat coiled itself around her leg, she exhaled shakily. Then she reached down, lifted it gently and held it close to her heart – for her own comfort as much as for its.

24

Kenny’s mum was a nervous woman by nature but she was always worse at night because, statistically, that was when most burglaries occurred, as well as most random drive-bys and police raids. Disturbed by the slightest little sound, she could usually be found huddled under a duvet on the couch in the small hours, watching whatever she could find on TV to keep the ghouls at bay.

She almost jumped out of her skin now when she heard a knock at the door. She crept out into the hall and pressed her eye up against the spyhole. Recognising the man who was standing outside, she pushed the letter-box flap open and whispered, ‘Sorry, love, you’ll have to come back tomorrow. He’s in bed.’

‘This is really important,’ the man whispered back, speaking slowly because he recalled that she was a bit simple. ‘So go and get him for me, there’s a love.’

‘I don’t know,’ she said uncertainly. ‘He doesn’t like being disturbed when he’s sleeping.’

‘He won’t mind once he hears why I’m here,’ the man assured her, squatting down and flashing her a reassuring smile. ‘Go on, be a love. Go get him.’

Sighing, she said, ‘All right, just a minute.’

She went upstairs, tapped on Kenny’s door, and then counted to twenty. She’d only walked in on him once without warning but she would never do it again because she’d seen things that a mother should
never
see.

She pushed his door open now and tiptoed up to the bed. ‘Kenny?’ she whispered, gently shaking his shoulder.

He woke as soon as she touched him and was out of the bed and waving a samurai sword under her nose in a flash.

‘Jeezus!’ he roared when his eyes cleared and he realised it was her. ‘Don’t fucking
do
that! I could have cut your fucking throat, you stupid cow!’

‘I’m sorry,’ she bleated, clutching her cardigan to her throat. ‘But there’s a pal of yours at the door. I told him you wouldn’t be happy but he insisted. He said it was really important.’

‘Who is it?’ Kenny asked, already pulling his jeans on.

‘I’m not sure,’ his mum admitted apologetically. ‘He’s been here a few times with you, though. Big lad, very short hair.
Baz
! That’s it.’

‘I don’t know anyone called Baz,’ Kenny muttered, pulling a T-shirt over his head.

‘Oh.’ She frowned. Then, snapping her fingers, she said, ‘Oh, no, it’s not Baz . . . it’s
Daz
.’

‘You joking?’ Kenny narrowed his eyes.

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I remember, because I called him Spaz once when you brought him round and you told me off.’

‘Move,’ Kenny said, stalking towards the door. ‘And don’t come down.’

‘You’re not taking that, are you?’ His mum eyed the sword with horror.

‘Too right I am,’ Kenny snarled as he trotted down the stairs.

‘Whoa!’ Daz yelped, holding up his hands and backing down the path when Kenny yanked the door open and lurched out. ‘Wait, man, just hear me out. I’ve got something to tell you that Eddie really needs to hear. One minute – that’s all it’ll take.’

‘One minute is all you’ll have left of your life if you don’t turn around and get the fuck back to whatever ditch you’ve just crawled out of,’ Kenny warned him, glancing around to make sure that nobody was watching.

‘Ken, please,’ Daz implored, closing the gate to separate them. ‘Just let me tell you, then I’ll go. I swear to God that Eddie will want to hear this. And it affects you, too, so you need to listen, an’ all. You don’t think I’d have risked coming back if I wasn’t serious, do you?’

Kenny caught a movement at a window across the road. Aware that he was being watched, he lowered the sword and jerked his head at Daz. ‘Inside.’

Daz was shaking now as he followed Kenny into the house. Sitting at the kitchen table when Kenny told him to, he swallowed nervously, his mouth suddenly as dry as his pockets had been for the last few months.

‘Well?’ Kenny said. ‘Say what you’ve come to say. And make it quick.’

Licking his lips, Daz said, ‘It’s about that guy who took over from me as the driver for the crew. Joe, is it?’

‘What about him?’ Kenny demanded.

‘I saw him earlier on,’ Daz said. ‘Over in Wigan.’

‘And?’

‘And I didn’t recognise him to start with but then it suddenly clicked.’ Pausing, Daz cleared his throat. ‘Sorry, man, any chance of a drink? I’ve been walking for hours and I’m all dried out.’

Kenny snatched a cup off the draining board and filled it with water from the tap.

‘Cheers,’ Daz said, taking a long drink. Then, after wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, he said, ‘Before I tell you, will you put in a good word with Eddie for me? ’Cos I had to hitch to get here and walk the rest of the way, and I only did it to prove I’ve still got loyalty.’

‘Expecting a medal?’ Kenny snapped, struggling to contain himself. Daz was already pissing him off and he felt like slapping him upside his stupid head.

‘No, I just wanna come home,’ Daz said plaintively. ‘I know I fucked up and it’ll take time to get his trust back, but I’d do anything.’

‘Just tell me what you’ve come to say,’ Kenny said impatiently.

Daz took another swig of the water. Then, looking Kenny square in the eye, he said, ‘I’ve been stopping with this lass I used to see in Wigan and some of her mates took me out for a pint earlier tonight.’

‘
And?
’ Kenny snapped, wishing he’d just get to the point.

‘And there were some blokes there when we got there, and I recognised a couple of them,’ Daz said. ‘Well, one of them to start with, ’cos I couldn’t place the other one straight off. But then it suddenly clicked.’

‘Is there a point to this?’ Kenny demanded, fast losing patience.

‘Yeah, there’s a point,’ Daz said, reaching into his pocket for his phone. Squealing with fear when Kenny lunged forward and shoved the blade of the sword under his chin, he said, ‘I was just gonna show you the pictures, man!’

‘Of what?’

‘That Joe with his dibble mates!’

‘You what?’ Removing the sword, Kenny peered down at him with narrowed eyes. ‘What you talking about?’

‘Honest, man,’ Daz said shakily. ‘Remember when Eddie sent us over to Leigh that time to look for Tommy after he ripped him off, and that big ginger-cunt traffic cop pulled me for having no brake light? Well, it was
him
, man. I recognised him from his hair. And that Joe was with him tonight – having a right laugh by the looks of it.’

‘You don’t even know Joe,’ Kenny reminded him. ‘You were long gone by the time he started working for Eddie.’

‘Yeah, but I’d seen him a couple of times when I dropped Carl off,’ Daz said. ‘That’s why it didn’t click straight off. I recognised his face, but not where from, so at first I thought he must have nicked me at some point. But then it clicked, and I thought,
fuck
no! That’s why I took the pictures, ’cos I couldn’t believe it.’

‘Show me,’ Kenny ordered.

The pictures had been taken from the other side of the pub and the quality was poor because the phone was a cheap one. But Kenny immediately recognised the ginger copper that Daz had mentioned. And he could also see at a glance that the man sitting beside him definitely was Joe – either that, or someone who looked exactly like him. He was wearing the exact same jacket that Kenny had seen Joe wearing: the weird green one with the red stripe on the collar that Kenny had ribbed him about because it was so naff.

‘That don’t mean nothing,’ Kenny said now, handing the phone back. ‘Anyone can be at the same place at the same time. He’d probably been nicked by the cunt himself and was just having a bit of banter with him.’

‘Come off it,’ Daz snorted. ‘He’s one of them. It’s
obvious
. Look again, and tell me you can’t see it.’ He thrust the phone out.

Kenny gazed at the pictures again. When you’d had as much contact with the police as he’d had over the years you came to recognise that unmistakable something they had about them: that air of arrogance that they could never quite shake off even after they had slipped out of uniform and into civvies. And it was right there in Joe – he could see it now.

‘Don’t move,’ he said as he marched out of the door and bounded up the stairs.

Swigging at the water, Daz raised his eyes when he heard Kenny’s mum ask her son if everything was okay.

‘Keep your nose out,’ Kenny retorted tetchily. ‘And get to fucking bed. It ain’t natural moping about at all hours like a fucking ghost.’

He came back down a few seconds later with his mobile in his hand. ‘If you’re lying and you’ve faked these pictures, you’d best tell me now.’

‘On my life, I’m not lying,’ Daz said calmly, already envisioning himself being welcomed back into the fold.

25

It had taken Clive ages to persuade the coppers who’d pulled him that he hadn’t been kerb-crawling but had been searching for his teenage daughter who, he’d claimed, had gone missing after arguing with her mother earlier that afternoon. Fortunately, they had believed him. But that had created a whole new set of problems, because then they had insisted on circulating his fictitious daughter’s description. And they had also wanted Clive’s name, address, landline and mobile numbers so that they could contact him if they found her.

Already pissed off about that, his mood had plummeted when he’d arrived at Eddie’s only to find that his friend expected him to drive back through town with a dead body in the boot.

‘Are you fucking crazy?’ he protested. ‘What if them coppers see me and pull me to ask if I’ve found my daughter yet?’

‘You’ve already talked them round once tonight – I’m sure you’ll be able to do it again,’ Eddie said unconcernedly. ‘But the longer you hold us up, the more chance there is that they will see you. So quit moaning and go pull the car up as close to the door as you can get it. And, here . . . take him down with you.’

Sucking his teeth in disgust when Eddie thrust the lead into his hand, he yanked the dog out and dragged it down the stairs.

It took Eddie and Carl a good ten minutes to smuggle the body out of Chrissie’s place and manhandle it down to the car. Carl was petrified that someone would spot them but they managed to get it into the boot without a hitch, so it was a job well done as far as Eddie was concerned.

He closed the boot firmly, pulled a key out of his pocket and handed it to Carl. ‘You know Patsy’s flat?’

‘No.’ Carl shook his head.

‘Red block, six twenty,’ Eddie told him, his voice so low that Carl could hardly hear him. ‘There’s a cot in the bedroom. My case is under the floorboards. Get it.’

A sickening realisation hit Carl. He frowned and his gaze flitted towards the boot. ‘Is that . . . ?’ Trailing off, he swallowed loudly.

‘Wow, you’re sharp, you, ain’t you?’ Eddie sniped. ‘Just quit gawping and get my case,’ he said, hopping into the passenger side of the car.

‘What d’y want me to do with it?’ Carl croaked, dreading the thought of letting himself into Patsy’s place now that he knew it was her body he’d just carried down.

‘Sit on it till I get back,’ Eddie told him irritably. ‘And get fucking moving, you muppet.’

Gripping the key, Carl pulled up the hood of Joe’s jacket and ducked into the shadows.

Eddie took out his phone when Clive set off.

‘It’s me,’ he said when his call was answered. ‘Meet us at your place, quick as. We’re on the way and we’ve got heavy shit we need rid of.’

Cutting the call, Eddie exhaled wearily. His head was mashed. And not because of what he’d done to Patsy – because that was just a nuisance sorted, as far as he was concerned – but because of that baby of hers. He’d never been completely convinced that it was his, but if it
was
– and the police traced it back to him – there would be awkward questions to answer. And he could really do without the hassle as long as he still didn’t know where those bitches were or what they were saying about him.

His phone rang. It was Kenny.

‘I’m busy,’ Eddie told him. ‘What do you want?’

‘Where are you?’ Kenny asked. ‘Are you on your own?’

‘Out with C,’ Eddie told him. ‘Why?’

‘Don’t kick off,’ Kenny said. ‘But I’ve got Daz round at mine.’

‘You fucking
what
?’ Eddie roared.

‘Just hear me out, man,’ Kenny said, urgency in his voice. ‘He’s just told me something that you really need to hear. It’s about Joe – and you’re not gonna like it, man.’