The Cover Up Read online

  Gloria pointed to her trolley, still stuffed full of more than one hundred thousand pounds. Perhaps a quarter of a million. She hadn’t counted it yet. ‘That’s my chariot of fire, that is. And it was just a touch of light extortion from sinners who get what’s coming to them.’ She folded her arms tightly over her bosom. ‘Anyway. Call it what you will. I take pride in a job well done, young man.’

  ‘You wanna watch your back, Mam. Seriously. You were the one always lecturing me, “Lay with dogs, you get fleas.” Well, you’re rubbing some dyed-in-the-wool, dangerous bastards up the wrong way, now. Don’t be surprised if it all comes back to bite you on the arse. Jesus won’t save you, then. What if someone opens their mouth? Eh?’

  She opened the shutters, ignoring Lev’s melodramatic squinting, unwelcome advice and general complaint. Threw open the living room window, wafting her hand in front of her face in protest at the stale smell of testosterone and unwashed twenty-something-year-old. Thought wistfully of her own home in Chorlton, which was currently being rented out by the sister of one of the members of the congregation. How she hankered after her own space and no parental responsibilities. Just a dim memory now. ‘You should have been at the farm today. Especially if the boy was with his harlot of a mother.’

  ‘There’s something wrong with me,’ Lev said, lying back on the sofa, arms thrown high above his head. He had the body of a fully grown, athletically built man but still adopted the same pose he had as a little boy when he had been feeling poorly. ‘I feel rough when I go out. Dizzy, like. I think I’ve come down with—’

  ‘You’ve gone down with a touch of sloth!’ Gloria said, marching through to the kitchen and flicking the kettle on. Shouting so that he could hear her. ‘One of the seven deadly sins, Leviticus.’

  ‘And you’ve come down with avarice and pride! See? I’m not that thick, am I?’

  She was just about to lecture her layabout son further on the extent of his ignorance, as far as the seven deadly sins were concerned, when her phone rang. Peering at the screen, she didn’t recognise the number. Was about to send it to voicemail, lest it was some disgruntled O’Brien landlord, deciding that he would, after all, like to ram something unpleasant into one of her lady-regions. But picking up was a useful means of sidetracking Leviticus from a conversation which was not going entirely to her satisfaction.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Is that gorgeous Gloria?’

  ‘Who is this?’ She already knew who it was. She hid her grin from her son.

  Chapter 15

  Sheila

  ‘Jesus, that’s a lot of cash,’ Sheila said as she and Gloria finished counting the last pile. Stacks of twenties and tens rose in teetering piles all over the kitchen’s island worktop. Two hours’ worth of work to check and re-check.

  ‘Nearly three hundred thousand,’ Gloria said, her face lit up with obvious pride. ‘There were a lot of nasty types owed you some very large sums. It’s a long time since Paddy died by the reckoning of your debtors. They thought you’d forget. Luckily …’ She winked. ‘I reminded them.’

  Sheila counted out Gloria’s percentage and gave it to her. ‘Don’t let onto this new admirer of yours that you’re a woman of means. Let him do the wining and dining. Last thing you need after Lev’s pimp of a dad is another sponger. So, keep this under your church hat.’

  ‘Oh, don’t you worry, She. I intend to,’ Gloria said, ramming a wad of money down the front of her dress. She laughed hysterically as though she’d just done the funniest thing in the world. ‘Only kidding.’ Clasping Sheila by the arm playfully, she moved the money from her cleavage to her handbag. ‘Bob, the love-king of speed-dating, is taking me for lunch later. He can stuff off if he thinks I’m buying so much as a breadstick!’

  The sun was only just coming up. With Gloria gone, Sheila sat at a bar stool, sipping her early morning coffee thoughtfully and contemplating the cash. A king’s ransom, here. Two more rubble sacks that Paddy had left stashed beneath the tiles in the guest en-suite shower. So fat with dirty money that they’d caused a leak into the master bedroom below. She started to shake her head slowly.

  ‘I can’t have this in the house,’ she told the hosts of the breakfast television show who spoke without sound on the muted TV, sunk into the far wall. She rubbed at the goosebumps that sprang up beneath the skin of her forearms. Shivered. ‘Come on, Sheila. Get your act together.’

  Downstairs, in the quiet of the garage, Sheila heaved the last of the sacks into the boot of her Porsche Panamera and shut the lid. Get it out. Get it somewhere safe. She acknowledged the sweat rolling down her back on that cold September morning. Jesus. Is this perimenopause or nerves? But she realised it was well-placed anxiety. Even with Paddy gone, Ellis James and Ruth Darley had eyes everywhere. The police and HMRC were foes not to be underestimated, and their weapons were search warrants and audits. Retribution from Bancroft was sure to come at some point soon too. No saying trouble wouldn’t come knocking on her front door. She had to move fast.

  Hastening back up to the bedroom, she pulled on a pair of jeans and a cashmere jumper. Kissed Conky’s forehead as he started to stir from his slumber.

  His shovel of a left hand appeared from under the duvet. He grabbed the digital clock that sat beside his hairpiece. Squinted at the display with his bulging thyroid eyes. ‘Jesus, She. Where you off to so early?’ Setting the clock down, he reached for her, but she had already started to retreat to the door.

  ‘I’ve been up for ages. I’ll not be more than an hour. Get some coffee on. I’ll explain later.’ She blew him a kiss, feeling dizzy with adrenalin, watching Conky’s sleepy morning unfold at a pace entirely unrelated to that of her own frenetic adventure.

  The gravel crunched beneath her tyres as she navigated the long drive. The heavy wooden gates started to move aside on their automated tracks, receding into the mature shrubbery. It was six-thirty now. At a glance, only the squirrels, the birds and the odd jogger were on the move on Bramshott’s sleepy, leafy boulevards. But Sheila was now so keenly alert that she almost smelled the stale aroma of Ellis James before she saw him, sitting in his unmarked car some one hundred metres from her mansion.

  ‘Sneaky, persistent little arsehole. Why you on my case all the bloody time?’

  His beady eyes weren’t immediately visible. His head lolled on his driver’s side window. She chewed harder on her gum, wondering if the dog-eared detective was even awake. In a private no-through-road with impassable bollards crossing the midpoint, she had no option but to drive past him. Should she floor it and hope to evade detection through sheer speed, or crawl quietly, lowering the risk of rousing the sleeping policeman?

  Too late. It didn’t matter how fast she drove, Ellis James had sat up in his seat and was looking straight at her. Shit.

  Sheila waved. ‘Morning, wanker!’ She forced a smile onto her face, rapidly assessing from his frown and the fact that he was belting himself in that he was going to follow her. Or was he?

  As she swung her car into the road and up to the junction, sure enough, through her rear-view mirror, she spied James’ old grey Mondeo pull away from the kerb.

  ‘Come on, come on, She,’ she counselled herself. ‘You’ve got to shake the bastard off. How the hell are you going to do it?’

  If she went above the speed limit, he could stop and search her. Maybe. Or at least stop her and issue a ticket. Damn! It wasn’t far to the motorway and then it would be a straight journey into town. That early in the morning, however, the motorway would be empty, but for the odd taxi, taking someone to the airport or heavy goods vehicles, rumbling on to their destinations. No traffic to lose him in.

  ‘Bugger!’ Sheila smacked the dashboard in frustration, her breath coming in short gasps. She looked up at the grey Mancunian skies above leafy trees that were only just on the turn. Prayed for an act of divine providence that would do away with the determined detective on her tail; feeling the weight of half a million in rubble sacks almost draw the boot of her P
anamera backwards to the bonnet of the grey Mondeo, as if bad gravity were somehow in action.

  But her prayers went unanswered. Ellis James was still in pursuit, doing a steady twenty-nine about a hundred yards behind her.

  Conspiracy to commit fraud.

  Tax evasion.

  Harbouring illegal and immoral earnings or some shit.

  Sheila wasn’t certain of what she would be charged with, should James find the money, but it wouldn’t bode well for her. ‘You’re a twat, Sheila O’Brien!’ she shouted as she passed the yellow box of a speed camera. ‘You should have left it where it was. You panicked and now you’ve screwed it up for yourself.’

  Then, inspiration came in the form of a large church that stood by the roadside on her right. A relief carving in white marble above the portico of the Virgin Mary, clutching the dead body of a crucified Jesus.

  ‘Gloria!’

  She brought up Gloria’s number on the car phone. Her business partner answered on the third ring, still sounding positively perky. The coo and gurgle of a toddler in the background.

  ‘I’ve got that shitbag detective on my tail right now, and half a mill in cash in the boot of my car. I need to shake the bastard off. I’m heading for the motorway. We’re about to pass by your street. Do us a favour, will you? Get in your car and act as a decoy or something.’

  On the other end of the phone, Gloria yawned. ‘It’s your cash. I’ve got my cash. I’m busy with our Jay’s breakfast and then I’m getting ready for my date. Why should I abandon that to help you squirrel away—?’

  ‘Gloria! Stop being an arsehole. We’re in this together. He’s in a grey Mondeo. 61 plate. You can’t miss him. If he was any closer, he’d be sitting on my back seat.’

  But inglorious Gloria hung up.

  ‘Bitch!’

  Sheila’s molars were almost fused together with tension by the time she approached Moss Side. Only a few men and women sheltered against the autumnal bluster in bus stops. Otherwise the empty pavements and the locked-up Afro-hairdressers, international money transfer and imported reggae record shops gave the place the feel of a down-at-heel seaside town, abandoned in winter months.

  Sheila wondered if she should merely turn around at the Parson’s Croft roundabout and go home. Inside the electronic gates of her mansion, she was safe … as long as James couldn’t produce a search warrant. Or perhaps she could shake him off at this next set of lights.

  ‘Change! Change, goddamit!’

  They changed to amber. But she wasn’t close enough. If she ran the lights, James could do her for a traffic offence.

  ‘Shitting Nora!’ she cried, bringing the car to a standstill.

  Checking her rear-view mirror, she saw the detective was sitting directly behind her now, smiling and waving at her through the windscreen. Sheila whimpered in frustration and fear. She was going to get caught.

  Onto the city, and hope surged anew. With so many roadworks having sprung up, there were traffic lights aplenty and sudden turns that would surely give her an opportunity to shake the creep off. She could not let him see where she was going.

  She hung a right onto Whitworth Street East. Not where she wanted to go, but she could disappear beneath one of the railway arches perhaps and gun the car along the warren of backstreets that led up to Manchester Metropolitan University. Holding her breath, she checked the rear-view mirror.

  ‘No! No! Piss off, you shabby little tag-nut!’

  James was still on her. She hung a left. Pelted across Oxford Road towards Princess Street, swinging hastily right through the lights as she passed the Lass O’Gowrie pub on her left. Still behind her. Not good! And now, she was going in the opposite direction to her chosen destination. Worse still, she turned into a one-way street, driving in the wrong direction.

  A flash of headlamps. James was indicating that she should pull over.

  ‘Shit! Shit! Shit!’ Sheila’s breath came short. Tears started to leak unbidden from the corners of her eyes. Why the hell hadn’t she taken Conky with her? Damn!

  Starting to slow, she indicated that she was pulling over. Swallowing down a cold lump of fear.

  Except her surrender was interrupted by the persistent honk of a horn and the squealing sound of a car’s tyres. In her wing mirror, she caught sight of a Mazda MX-5, pulling in front of James’s car at an untenable angle. A familiar-looking black woman in the driver’s seat.

  ‘Gloria!’

  Sheila could see her partner, grim-faced and hunched over the steering wheel. Blocking the detective’s path.

  ‘Good on you, Glo. I owe you one.’

  Hitting the gas, Sheila squealed away from the side street and arrived at her destination within minutes. She parked right in front of the safety deposit facility. Lugged the bags downstairs in two hasty journeys, once the security guys had buzzed her through three sets of barred, iron gates. Down, down, down, beneath Manchester’s street level, she descended to vaults that hid the city’s dirtiest and costliest secrets.

  ‘Can I access my box please?’ she asked the wan-faced security guard, who looked as though he was more than ready to get off the night shift.

  ‘Of course, Mrs. O’Brien.’ He gave her a weak smile.

  Together, they unlocked the box she had recently rented – more of a vault, really, given its size. She waited for the man to leave. Shoved the rubble sacks inside. Called him back. Locked up. Done.

  Finally allowing herself to breathe normally, Sheila emerged from the subterranean complex onto the deserted street. She leaned forward, gripping her knees and wondering if she was going to vomit.

  ‘I did it,’ she whispered to the chewing-gum-splattered paving slabs. ‘Thank Christ.’

  Sheila O’Brien kept smiling as she unlocked her car. Right until she looked up and noticed a council-owned CCTV camera, trained on the entrance to the safety deposit facility. Manchester had eyes, and she’d been spotted. How come she’d never noticed that before? She was certain it was new. And how come Ellis James had known to follow her like a greyhound with coney in its nostrils on the one day she was driving with a boot full of dirty money? Was he being fed information? Or had it just been a lucky hunch?

  She was so blinded by paranoia at the CCTV and shaking, thanks to the toxic fallout of a deadly chase through the city’s streets, that she almost didn’t notice that one of the large new office blocks, diagonally opposite to where she had parked, sported a logo she recognised. She blinked hard at the red double ‘B’ flanked by wings that almost resembled the Bentley logo, positioned prominently outside the main entrance to the office block. Sheila was familiar with the signage because she had googled it ahead of a meeting by the Lowry theatre that had changed everything.

  ‘Nigel bleeding Bancroft?’

  Chapter 16

  Gloria

  ‘Is this a good idea?’ Lev asked, helping Jay to spoon mashed up baked beans and potato into his mouth. ‘Didn’t you tell me you weren’t sure about him?’

  Her son didn’t even bother to look at her when he was speaking to her, so obsessed was he with the boy. And the boy was making a mess of the rental’s living room carpet, even though he was in a high chair with its own integral table.

  ‘Good Lord, Leviticus,’ Gloria said, stooping to pick up a glob of mush with her bare hand. She shuddered and grimaced before hurling it into the bin. Proceeded to wash her hands in very hot soapy water at the sink. ‘Don’t let Jay throw his food around. I don’t want Sheila coming to me, moaning that she didn’t get her full deposit back when we eventually leave this place.’

  ‘You’re having a laugh, aren’t you? Unless they cart us off to prison, we’re never getting out of this boring shithole. Not at this rate,’ Lev said, pretending the blue plastic spoon was an aeroplane, hurtling towards Jay’s messy mouth with a carb-laden payload. ‘And if you keep getting up in the grille of that Ellis James, like you did this morning, that’s gonna happen sooner than you reckon.’

  ‘He called me a black cow,’
Gloria said, poking at her carefully set hair. ‘Can you believe it? A black cow! What a nasty, racist ne’er-do-well of a man. There’s clearly not a single Christian bone in his shabby, flabby body.’ Her minor triumph registered in her chest like a small, inflating balloon of deliciously warm air. A soupçon of pride that the Lord would surely allow her. She glanced over at little Jay, trying to grab the spoon; picking a baked bean off the high chair’s plastic table. She was pleased to see that his fine motor skills were starting to improve after the brain tumour had been removed. She offered a silent prayer towards the grey sky, thanking Jesus for his many small mercies. Escaping the clutches of Ellis James had been the least of them.

  ‘Did he really call you a black cow?’ Lev asked.

  Gloria grinned. Allowed the laughter that tickled the back of her throat to push its way up and out, like Noah releasing a white dove following the biblical storm. ‘Well, his version of events would be that I’d swung in front of him on purpose so Sheila could get away. Then, he’d say he tried to arrest me for dangerous driving and obstructing the law.’ She replayed the confrontation in her mind’s eye, recalling how fervently she had prayed to the good Lord for assistance and how she had willed herself to keep standing, though her legs had been threatening to buckle with fear. ‘My version of events involves my car stalling, him racially abusing me for something I’ve got absolutely no control over, and then he tries to manhandle me. I have no memory of being read my rights, obviously, so I’m finding the word “assault” tripping off my tongue. And I think I might have also mentioned harassment. I don’t think he was very keen for me to go to the station and register a complaint. So, now, we’ll never know if he really called me a black cow or not, will we?’

  Lev shook his head and sucked the air sharply through his teeth.

  ‘Sheila needed my help and I obliged, Leviticus. That’s called professional loyalty. And I’m a middle-aged black woman, living in the twenty-first century. I don’t need to put up with police haranguing me at seven in the morning just because my car’s steering occasionally acts up. It sets a bad precedent for your generation. Better to die on my feet than to live on my knees. There’s a pearl of wisdom for you!’