C.T. Brown - Second Time Lucky? Read online

  "Put that hand away before I give you more broken fingers so it matches the other one." he said. Davey's threats would be more convincing if I did not already know he was a wimp and a coward. "And what is with the stupid grin?"

  "Ah, Davey. I've missed your charm, the warmth of your personality and your sunny disposition."

  "You're even more irritating than I remember."

  "I don't like to disappoint, always exceed people's expectations I say."

  "Whatever. Dad said I've got to make sure people talk to you, doesn't seem fair to make anyone listen to you but it's up to him I guess. Who gets you inflicted on them first?"

  "Whoever was working the night your sister went missing. One by one."

  Unfortunately Davey was exactly as intelligent as he looked and he really did bring in everyone who had been working that night, including the cleaners and the cook. I set up one of the empty bedrooms to do these interviews, with ten bedrooms and only Davey and his dad living here it wasn't difficult to find an unfurnished one - two chairs were moved in by a very happy gardener who only seemed to speak an unidentified Eastern European language. As it turned out Davey's blind stupidity helped, it turned out the cook and the cleaning staff had a very good idea of everyone else's movements over the day leading up to the disappearance and in the days after.

  Following those interviews I moved onto Don 'Wheels' Newton, the unimaginatively nicknamed main driver for the family. First of all I asked why he hadn't been driving the limo himself, he told me he had been driving the Range Rover to take his boss to a meeting he refused to tell me anything about except that it was "well out of town". When I asked him about the actual driver that night he got even more cagey, it took some pushing, and a reminder from Davey that cooperation was not optional, to find out he was relatively new. Apparently he had been a bit of a brown noser, the boss had not been interested but a couple of his lieutenants had taken to the guy's compliments and he had become a popular driver for them. I made a note of which lieutenants in particular. Wheels had not left instructions for this guy to pick Carmen up from the party, in fact he had left no instructions for anyone to do so - her plan had been for a quiet night-time stroll home with me it seemed. On that evening I had seen her speak to the driver before she came and told me she was getting a lift home but I assumed she was just telling him she would be a few minutes while we said our goodbyes, I now wondered if she had questioned what he was doing there. That brought up another question, why not walk home with me anyway? It was not like the driver could order her to get in.

  Next up was the first of the lieutenants who had allegedly been complimented by our brown nosing driver. Kaseem Smith, his real name by all accounts, was immaculately dressed in a very expensive suit and not much older than me. Given the way Davey carefully kept his natural arrogance under control around him I got the impression Kaseem was someone to be very careful of. Anyone this young in a position of power in the Spigarelli operation had to have done some serious violence on the way. I asked him about the driver.

  "Sure, he seemed ok at first, but I didn't trust the man."

  "Why not?"

  "He didn't want to pick a winner."

  "A winner?"

  "Everyone here picks who in the level above them is going to win, at each level there's fewer and fewer as you go on up so only certain one's is going to win a place to go up. You pick the right geezer and you can step up behind him. Once you get to where I am there ain't no further up because the boss ain't going nowhere so you try to be the one he trusts the most instead."

  "And this driver was kissing up to way too many people."

  "Yeah. But he also got it all wrong."

  "How?"

  "A driver is several levels below someone like me. Even Davey's got to show me respect, that's how high up I am. He should have been looking way lower down the food chain. Plus he got carried away."

  "Carried away?"

  "Yeah. He kept asking if there was any favours he could do, anything needed moving, extra jobs to help us out and all that. Even things we wanted no-one else to know about. Once he started in on that I told him to get lost, I don't want to know nothing about anything going on on the quiet. The boss gets upset when he finds out about that sort of thing. Upset and often quite . . . unfriendly."

  "I can imagine what you mean."

  The other three lieutenants were not going to be free until after lunch so I suggested to Davey that we go and speak to one of their tamed Police officers.

  Detective Chief Inspector Donaldson sat hunched over his double mocha frappachino in Starbucks as if he could somehow make himself smaller and thus stand less chance of being seen with Davey and me. Pretty quickly it was obvious he had something to hide, whether it was directly related to the murder or not I did not know. I got the impression he was the type of copper who had risen to his current rank not so much through hard work and breaking tough cases as by doing favours and cosying up to the right people. However, while I could see that the man was clearly telling us porkies Davey seemed to be accepting every word. Even he was not that stupid. From the DCI's story the car had somehow avoided being caught on any traffic cameras or any other CCTV in the area, no-one had seen the car either - it had just vanished into thin air. Yeah, right. With Davey nodding at every utterance and adding the occasional encouraging comment there was clearly little point in carrying on the conversation.

  We returned to his dad's house and interviewed the rest of his lieutenants, they all told the same story. Our driver was a kiss arse who sucked up to the most senior people he could find and, in most cases, he soon started offering to do things to help them and suggested something a step too far. All of the lieutenants had alibis for the night of the disappearance, all easy to confirm too. Their alibis for every moment on from the following morning were easy too, they had all been heavily involved in the search for Carmen. By the time we were done it was after nine in the evening, Davey told me to go find somewhere to stay and to be back at the house by eight in the morning if I dared. "Alternatively you could just run, you know." he had said, sneering. "One day in and you've got nothing. If you ain't got an answer by tomorrow evening my dad's going to kill you."

  "Why would I run Davey? I've got plenty today, I'm pretty sure I know what happened now. Just need to confirm a few things in the morning and I'll be ok." I certainly hoped I sounded certain when I said it because he was right, I had nothing. Then I noticed something, his smiled slipped ever so slightly and the look in his eyes hardened but he had nothing to say. Did he know something? He and his sister had never got on but would he really hide something about his sister's murder? He had never approved of me either but did he dislike me enough to let the real killer of his sister get away?

  Another night in the car did me no good, lack of sleep was becoming a problem and I was pretty sure I could now knock someone unconscious by simply raising my arms, ripe did not begin to cover it. Disturbing dreams had interrupted my night repeatedly, dreams and memories of how Davey and Carmen had always seemed to have something bad between them – something I had never got to the bottom of. Davey had been clear that I needed to be at his father's for eight, instead I made a call saying I'd be a bit late and hung up as he started ranting about tracking me down and killing me like the dog I was and so on. Carefully watching Starbucks I saw the crumpled figure of DCI Donaldson emerge a little after eight-fifteen. It was easy enough to catch up to him on a quiet street.

  "Hello again."

  "What the . . . oh, you again, where's Davey?"

  "Probably tucked up in bed feasting on a breakfast of crazy pills. I need to ask you a few more questions."

  "I'm in a bit of a hurry, I'll call Davey and set something up for later."

  I put my arm out to block his path. "I'd much rather we had a chat now."

  He puffed himself up and tried a stern look. "I'm a DCI, you mess me about any more and I can cause you a lot of trouble. I know who you are and I know you're a wanted man so wat
ch it or I'll nick you."

  "You think you scare me? You dumb bastard. Spigarelli has detailed exactly what he'll do to me if I don't turn something up pretty quickly, you think being arrested is a threat when I've got the biggest mobster in the home counties ready to torture and kill me? And that's not even counting the associates of that scumbag who ended up stabbed in London. I'm seriously desperate mate and if you don't start opening up you're going to have some serious problems."

  "What are you going to do? You're some stupid little kid."

  "I'm not going to do anything. I know that you know something so I'm just going to let Spigarelli know that and then run. Sure he might catch me but he will definitely catch you. Lie all you like, but he'll get it out of you, Davey won't be able to stop it. All I have to do is spread some doubt about you and Davey. He'll grab you and torture you, all the time hoping that whatever is going on with you and Davey is not connected to Carmen. But he will do it. He won't be able to help himself, the doubt will nag at him until he does."

  "Shit."

  "Too right." That was when he decided to ring in sick to work. We went to his smart semi in my Focus and he took me to the front room, where his safe was unimaginatively hidden behind a painting on the wall. Some people think they are living in an old movie.

  Donaldson insisted that before he opened it I had to promise I would help him, that he would not get into trouble over this. Davey had paid him a lot to keep this quiet so I had to make Spigarelli and son think I had got it from someone else. I agreed. I did not think there was any chance they would believe that but I think something had broken inside the guy. Keeping something quiet about all of this was eating at him, he could not decide if he was more scared of Spigarelli or Davey or the guilt of keeping it all under wraps. From the look on his face I suspected he would kill himself once I left. Strangely I did not think about stopping him - he knew something about the murder of the first woman I had loved and keeping it quiet had ruined my life and led to the murder of the second woman I loved, I was not too concerned what happened to him. He handed me half a dozen CDs and a carrier bag with what looked like sealed evidence bags inside.

  Placing a quick call I got a little help from an old friend in the area. John Philips had been at school with Carmen and me, a good friend who had never quite believed I had anything to do with the murder. We had not been in touch much because he had not been able to do anything to help with my investigation, he was just a normal guy and not connected to the criminal underworld in any way. After three or four visits from the Police he had just gone quiet, no-one wants to get caught up in a Police investigation - especially a murder case. Since I had been out of Prison we had met for a drink a couple of times to catch up but that was the extent of our friendship. Fortunately he was willing to let me use his laptop during his lunch break from work and I got to see what was on the CDs. Once I had, all I need to do was to decide what it all meant and what to do with the contents and the evidence bags. Well, I also had to decide what to do with all the disturbing questions it raised too. Worryingly it suggested potential answers to old questions too, things I had tried not to think too much about at the time and since.

  Mid afternoon I arrived back at Spigarelli's place. He was angry at the sight of me but Davey was screaming and shouting at me before I had even stepped out of the car. Letting them shout for a bit was a good idea because Spigarelli soon got him temper under control and shouted at Davey to be quiet. "I'm cutting your time short, it's up now. Show me what you've got or start begging for mercy." he said to me. I picked up my holdall from the passenger seat of the car and said we needed a laptop, him, Davey, me and no-one else. Davey made it clear he thought I should just die then and there but Spigarelli disagreed.

  In a small room inside I carefully laid out the story of what had happened that night. First I showed the journey of the limo, CCTV footage from the CDs showed it travelling to a small warehouse Spigarelli owned on the outskirts of Stevenage. Then I showed the footage from the cameras on the industrial park where the warehouse was. The footage showing Carmen being dragged from the car, kicking and screaming, by the man who had to be her killer. The man who had raped her repeatedly before stabbing her, who had murdered the driver to keep him quiet, who had either also killed Emily and Fingers to make it look like me, or who had ordered those things done. The man sitting next to Spigarelli. His son Davey.

  By the time Spigarelli had turned Davey was out of his seat and heading for the door, he opened it and three of the security guys stepped in. Each carried a gun and they clearly weren't working for the elder Spigarelli anymore.

  "Why, Davey? Why would you do this?" said Spigarelli. To his credit his voice did not waver even in the face of this whole bunch of betrayals at once.

  "Why?" shouted Davey. "You blind idiot. This moron was never going to be good enough for her, no-one ever would be. I tried to protect her, show her how I cared. She never wanted me, once she was old enough she threatened to tell you what I'd done to her when we were kids, she thought it was disgusting. It wasn't. It was an expression of our love but her mind had been poisoned against me, she didn't understand. I saw this, this . . . pathetic little boy become her lover and I was supposed to stand by? I couldn't. But she wouldn't understand. She fought me. I had no choice." His face was bright purple with the effort of shouting so much, spittle hung from his lips. Then a shot rang out and a circle of blood appeared on his forehead a moment before the back of his head exploded all over the wood panelling on the wall behind him. One of the traitorous security guys dropped his gun, the others raised theirs. Three rapid shots and Spigarelli and I were the last ones standing in the room, four bullet holes gaped in the biggest window in the room. After a moment of the loudest silence I have ever known the door burst open and more goons rushed in, they looked around and then . . . I don't know because one of them knocked me silly and they dragged me off and locked me in a small windowless room somewhere. Soon I lost consciousness altogether.

  By the time I awoke and was led from the room to a nice dining room where I was seated across a small table from Spigarelli it was morning. Spigarelli looked at me with even more hatred than before. What now? I had brought him the truth about his daughter's murder but at a heavy cost, would he kill the messenger? Had he, like me, spent the night wondering if he should have spotted something in all the awkwardness between Carmen and Davey over the years. The way she had flinched if he touched her, the way she always seemed to be looking for an exit when they were in the same room. Should we have seen it coming? Could we have ever believed it was possible?

  He started by explaining that he never had a meeting with desperate people that wasn't monitored, Kaseem had been sitting in another room listening and watching everything. One of his most trusted henchmen had been sitting on top of a van parked outside with a hunting rifle, ready to kill me if I tried anything. Kaseem had read the situation and changed the henchman's instructions mid meeting. Spigarelli made it clear that the right thing had been done and that the CDs and evidence bags (containing all the forensic evidence necessary) had been passed to the Police. He also stated that there had been a man left outside by Davey’s associates to stop anyone getting in, Kaseem and the more loyal goons had managed to subdue him without killing him. Apparently it had taken some "vigorous effort" to convince him to give all the details to Spigarelli during the night but he had now managed to locate the men Davey had hired to set me up in London, the murderers of Emily and Fingers were now in Police custody - the unfortunate traitor had apparently not survived his confession. At no point did Spigarelli speak directly about what Davey had done or the more . . . unsavoury . . . aspects of what had happened to Carmen. Two of his henchmen entered the room and were ordered to escort me from the premises.

  As I climbed into my car I was handed a package, inside was a large wad of cash and a note saying "For your work. Do not come back." Once I was back on the motorway heading for London I breathed a huge sigh of relief, finally my n
ightmare was over, finally I knew what had happened, finally I could build a new life - but I would be doing it alone. I had to pull over onto the hard shoulder for a while as I could not see through the tears. Tears of joy and tears of grief mingled and ran down my face.

  About the author:

  C T Brown is an author, archer and photographer - at least that's what he tells himself while moving numbers around on spreadsheets in his day job as a data analyst. He is very happily married to his muse and lives in London. His blog is available at http://archerctb.wordpress.com and he can be contacted by email at [email protected]

  Coming Soon:

  Sovereign Nation, a full length adventure novel from C T Brown – see over the page for a free sample.

  Sovereign Nation

  By

  C T Brown

  Free Sample chapter.

  Full length novel available soon.

  Chapter One.

  Sanderson peered through his expensive binoculars at the nerdy academic standing on the street in the pouring rain across the road from his stationary van. He could see the heavy rain soaking the worn suit, untidy bundle of papers and threadbare shoulder bag that were the stereotypical outfit of choice for such men. As Sanderson watched the academic tried to clean the rain from his glasses using the corner of his un-tucked shirt - he wondered why it was that such academically gifted people were so often completely bereft of simple common sense. The kind of simple common sense that, for example, would tell them that you cannot clean rainrops from glasses lenses with the corner of a wet shirt while it is still pouring down. In the process of trying to clean his glasses the academic managed to drop half the papers he was carrying, he then dropped the rest as he bent over to try and retrieve them.