The Cover Up Read online

  ‘What? What is it?’ he asked, taking the document from her. Speed-reading it rapidly. ‘This is your contract with the safety deposit people.’ He shook his head, dumbfounded. ‘I don’t get it.’ Enveloping her cold, slender fingers in his own, he tried to pass on some comfort through touch alone. ‘For Christ’s sakes, She, tell me what’s going on.’

  Sheila started to cry in earnest, spitting out words in angry, desperate gobs, punctuated by heaving, gasping hiccoughs. ‘I thought the money would be safe in the vaults. They said it was a discreet, confidential service. I reckoned it was better than having a safe in the house that the police could force me to open. Right? But-but …’ Her chin dimpled. Teardrops spilled onto the granite of the island worktop like salty diamonds. ‘I’m caught on camera with big rubble sacks. And now this!’ She snatched the contract up and waved it in the air. ‘The safety deposit company are entitled to give your details to any “enforcement agencies that may demand them”. A load of bullshit in this small print about their duty to disclose suspected money launderers.’ Sniffing hard, she gulped the air like a drowning fish. ‘How could I be so naïve? I’ve buggered it up for myself, Conk. I thought I could just stash the money and slowly … I dunno … get rid of it on the quiet. But that bastard, James, can do me at any time for it. He’s watching. He’s been watching. The coppers are closing in. Bancroft’s closing in. There’s gonna be payback for what we did to Brummie Kev. I’m telling you. It’s all gonna kick off.’

  Conky patted her hand, wanting more than anything to embrace Sheila like a vulnerable child and to soothe her worries, as a doting parent would. But he saw the rigidity in her shoulders and thought better of it. Sheila was best left to come out of these downward spirals of her own accord. Years of being bullied by Paddy had made her a tricky customer in love, perched on her own little island made of eggshells.

  ‘Aw, come on now, She. You’re leaping several steps too far ahead there. What the hell do these safety deposit box people know about what you’ve got in your vault? Nothing. You’re a rich woman and much of it is legit. Paddy wasn’t entirely stupid, else you wouldn’t be living in a palace like this.’ With his shovel of a hand, he described in the perfumed air an arc that took in the trappings of her wealth – from the precision-built German kitchen units, to the contemporary crystal chandeliers that lit the place. ‘Why shouldn’t you stash things under lock and key, like everyone else? Are you less entitled to use those facilities than restaurant owners from the Curry Golden Mile or solicitors from fecking Spinningfields? That’s second-place behaviour, Sheila O’Brien. And you’re a queen. There’s no need for it, my love. And Bancroft? Well, he’s entitled to do what he likes in his legitimate business. There’s not a thing we can do to stop him, there. But I’ve personally kicked his men out of M1 House and sent him a message he’ll be chewing over very seriously indeed. Sure, I don’t think there’ll be retribution for you to worry about, darling.

  ‘I’ve been the O’Brien’s Loss Adjuster for decades now, She. I know this business back to front and I’ve got enough experience under my big old belt to know what sort of a reaction sending a head in a fried chicken bucket will elicit in a cheeky fucking aggressor. Bancroft was trying it on with you. That’s all. He’ll back down, so he will.’

  Her shoulders moved fractionally towards their normal position. ‘You’re right, Conks.’ She smiled weakly, the lines beside her mouth in that pretty but lean face seeming deeper than usual. Hopping off her bar stool, she buried her head in his chest, allowing him to enfold her slender frame in a protective embrace. ‘I’m so on edge. But is it any wonder with all that’s going on? And that Ellis James. It’s like he hasn’t got a frigging home to go to. He’s determined to put me away, Conk.’

  Conky pressed his nose into her hair, drinking in the scent of her expensive shampoo; acknowledging how strange it was to be in love with a woman who was like a doll made from sugar, spice and Semtex. She had always seemed too fragile and good for his stinking, filthy world of crime, violence and dark secrets.

  ‘He’s got nothing, She. If he had, he would have arrested both of us by now.’

  She looked up at him, searching his thyroid eyes for fuck-knew-what. ‘We can’t go on like this, Conks.’

  Those ominous words rang in his ears. We can’t go on like this. It was his turn to be paranoid. He held his breath. Was she about to end it? He had been anticipating that moment coming as soon as they had shared their first kiss. Shite.

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Running stuff the way Paddy ran it. All this cash that can’t be put through the books. The old-school rackets. Me and Gloria’s cleaning business – it’s easy to make that legit and get away with it. It’s profitable, it’s almost moral, it’s within my comfort zone. Know what I mean? The dating thing, too. I can get my head round it. But the bully-boy bullshit …’ She disengaged from the warmth of his body, perching on her bar stool once more.

  Conky exhaled heavily, his frown transforming to a delighted smile. She hadn’t been talking about their relationship, after all. He was merely fast-forwarding to the apocalypse, as had always been his go-to behaviour in the few previous romances he had buggered up. Have some bloody confidence, man. You and Sheila are good.

  ‘I just don’t know what to do,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to give it away to the likes of Bancroft, but I can’t keep getting my hands dirty with it, either. Amy and Dahlia aren’t going to thank me if I get slung in prison and they lose all their inheritance. Who’ll pay Amy’s university fees then? And what about the deposit for Dahlia’s flat in London?’

  Conky tutted and shook his head. ‘Really, if I’m honest, darling, this is no business for a woman. I’d advise you to sell to the Boddlingtons,’ he suggested. ‘Paddy had already agreed terms. I reckon a phone call would get that back on track.’

  When Sheila gave him a stinging slap across the face, a bewildered Conky reassessed that his pessimistic instincts had been correct. He didn’t know how Sheila ticked at all. It was surely only a matter of time before the love of his life broke his heart.

  Chapter 18

  Paddy

  Shadow Hunter: How did you get on with the bent accountant and the hair suppliers?

  Paddy waited until the two ticks at the end of his sentence lit up in blue, reassuring him that his WhatsApp communiqué had been safely delivered. Noted when Ellis James had last checked his account. An hour earlier, judging by the time that popped up on the header. The bastard had been online and yet still hadn’t given him an update as to whether he’d done anything about Paddy’s latest chunk of information, sent days ago under his moniker of Shadow Hunter.

  ‘Piss-taker,’ Paddy said under his breath. He flung his phone angrily onto Brenda’s old-fashioned Draylon sofa, debating what his next move should be. ‘Who the hell does he think he is, little fucking Hitler with his badge and handcuffs?’ Sighing, he acknowledged that the detective had no idea who his new, pseudonymous grass was or how he’d come about the information regarding Maureen Kaplan, accountant to the criminal stars, or the news that the Boddlingtons ran back-street brothels in run-down Sweeney Hall terraces. As far as Ellis James was concerned, Shadow Hunter was just some fantasist, armchair-vigilante, wannabe-copper, spouting hot air about all the wrongdoings that took place in the city. As far as Greater Manchester Police was concerned, Paddy O’Brien was a dim memory of a crime lord, now pushing up daisies in Southern Cemetery.

  ‘Who’s taking the piss?’ A skinny, short-arsed frame perched on the arm of the sofa, sucking the air and the light out of the room. Kyle, of course. Always hanging around like the bad smell that he was, earwigging whatever Paddy had to say.

  The kid flicked through the channels on the silent TV, taking the mute off when he came across some black birds in hot pants, twerking to that hip-hop shite that Paddy couldn’t abide. Cranking the volume of his chosen music channel up to ear-splitting level. There was some ponce on the screen, sitting on the bonnet of a car somewher
e like downtown LA, legs akimbo, as though he owned the world. Dressed like a bloody clown in bright yellow tracksuit bottoms, his ripped torso on show – a status symbol made from flesh. A gangsta. It served as a visual reminder to Paddy that he and his ilk were dinosaurs on the brink of extinction. Kyle grinned at the screen, lapping it up.

  Pocketing his phone, Paddy stood, clipping the boy on the head with his elbow as he walked past. ‘None of your business, pal. Button your lip. If your Mam hears you using language like that …’

  As he was leaving the cramped front room for the kitchen, where Brenda was applying her make-up, he heard Kyle mutter, ‘Fuck off’ under his breath.

  Paddy turned back and grabbed the boy by the chin. Examined his malnourished, underdeveloped face – all crooked teeth and skin stretched too tight over cheekbones that certainly weren’t from Brenda. The kid still looked about nine. Not unlike his brother, Frank, as a boy. ‘What did you just say to me?’

  ‘Nowt.’

  Paddy gripped harder on the boy’s jaw. Knew he must be hurting him. ‘I hear you eff and jeff in front of me again, I’ll lamp you one. Right?’

  Kyle shook himself loose from Paddy’s grip. Slunk off the arm of the sofa and backed away. A full six inches shorter than Paddy, who wasn’t a tall man to begin with. ‘You’re not my dad. I don’t have to do what you say.’ The kid balled his bony fists. All arms and legs, hanging like Woodbines out of his baggy T and ill-fitting, hand-me-down FUBU jeans.

  Poised to thump the overinflated ego out of the plucky little shit, Paddy paused, realising that Brenda might tolerate that kind of tough love herself but wouldn’t look so kindly on him using her son as a punchbag. He poked the boy hard in the ribs instead. ‘Watch your fucking mouth, son. Just you remember who’s thirteen and who’s sixty.’

  But Kyle had grabbed his jacket in an urgent blur. ‘Shove it up your arse, you old bastard. I’ve seen the way you treat my Mam. I’m watching you!’

  Narrowed, keen-sighted eyes and a mouth twisted with hatred were all that lingered in Paddy’s mind once the front door had slammed behind the boy.

  ‘Prick.’ He ran to the door and thumped one of the panels until the skin broke on his knuckles. Blood smeared on the cheap and nasty gloss job. Streaky red on streaky white.

  ‘What’s all that banging, love?’ Brenda shouted from the kitchen. Flump, flump, flump, flump, as she shuffled in her slippers through to the lounge. One eye half made-up. One eye still partially naked. A false eyelash, poorly applied and hanging down onto her cheek. ‘You wasn’t having a barney with our Kyle again, was you?’

  Paddy breathed heavily through his nostrils, trying to expel the hatred for another man’s son from his chest. He could feel pressure building up beneath his ribs. Katrina had warned him to look after his stress levels, but mounting frustration at being trapped inside somebody else’s identity had taken a hold of him of late.

  ‘He’s a mouthy shit, that lad of yours,’ he said, trying to remember if he’d taken his heart tablets that morning. The hangovers were fogging his memory. ‘You need to teach him some respect. What kind of a mother are you, to let a snot-nosed kid like that backchat your feller?’ He raised the palm of his hand to slap Brenda hard but stopped short of her cheek as he saw the sudden disappointment in her face.

  She ducked. Held her hands up defensively. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Ken! I’ll have a word with him.’ She shouted up to the ceiling. ‘Kyle! Get down here!’ No answer. ‘Is he in his room?’

  ‘Forget it,’ Paddy said, grabbing his anorak from the sofa. He knew of a better way to punish her than slapping her around. Today of all days. ‘The little arsehole legged it. He had the right idea. I’m out of here, and all. I need some frigging space, me.’ Peering around the room with a sneer on his face. ‘This dump and yous two are getting me down.’

  Brenda had planned on dragging him along to lunchtime karaoke at the local labour club, where she would parade him, as per, to her old has-been mates. He was Kenneth Wainwright, the shining example of manhood that she – a saggy, clapped-out shelf stacker who happened to have the greatest tits Paddy had ever seen – had bagged, despite her fat arse. Ordinarily she liked to sit in a corner, her arm linked in his, sipping half a mild and blathering on about all the songs she’d love to sing but didn’t dare. Not today, though. It was her birthday. If he ducked out now, the rejection would sting more than any slap.

  Reaching out to him with blue-painted nails, there was desperation in her voice. ‘Come on, Ken. I’ll make you a bacon buttie before we go. With brown sauce – how you like it. Cheer you up. Save you buying me lunch. I’ll stick on a pan of chips, if you like.’

  But he was already closing the door behind him. He had switched Brenda’s mewling voice off. His thoughts turned to calling Hank to see what the latest developments were.

  Moseying down the street, marking the grubby bounds of this one-star-rated exile as his territory, he dialled the number. He didn’t have to wait to be answered. He was the one paying, after all, although greasing the wanker’s palm was leaving Paddy cash-strapped in all other areas of his life.

  ‘It’s me,’ he said.

  ‘Hiya, mate.’ Hank’s chirpy voice at the other end. ‘I was just thinking of you.’

  ‘I bet you were. I shouldn’t have to chase you for an update. What have you got?’

  Kicking at the discarded chip-shop plates and empty lager cans that nestled by the kerbside, Paddy had reached the end of Brenda’s street. Where to go next? The last place he wanted to be was that shitty hovel he called a home. The Irwell flowed noisily by, some twenty or thirty feet below on the other side of the Victorian stone retaining wall, providing a foil for his clandestine call.

  He walked to the river’s edge, listening to his sole employee fill him in with the latest. At this time of year, the giant hogweeds on the riverbanks were just starting to turn brown and wither, exposing the fly-tipped refuse that sat at the base of these almost Jurassic plants. An upturned Asda trolley in the middle of the low-tidal flow.

  ‘Chopped his head off, I heard,’ Hank said.

  Paddy looked up at the low-lying blanket of cement-grey clouds. ‘Get away! You’re having a laugh.’

  ‘Nope. Word on the grapevine says Nigel Bancroft’s got his knickers in a right twist over it. The young lad that Conky topped was playing a dangerous game though. Pillock. Not like me. He was asking to get copped. I’m playing it cool, like.’

  Mulling over this information, Paddy was secretly impressed by Sheila’s audacity. She had taken on the Midlands and won … for now. Who’d have thought it? All those years, he’d assumed his wife was a pushover. Turned out, she had balls of steel – enough to send him to the grave and see a rival crime boss off. Obviously, she owed it all to decades spent learning from the master.

  If Paddy was going to take Sheila down, he realised he’d have to operate with stealth.

  ‘What about Bell?’ he asked, watching a flock of Canadian geese take flight from the slag heaps of long-forgotten trash that had turned the river’s low-tide flow into rapids. ‘Any news on where the little shitehawk’s holed up?’

  Excitement in his man’s voice. ‘Actually, I’ve had a brainwave as far as the Bells are concerned.’

  ‘Go on. Impress me.’

  ‘I’m drawing a blank with Lev, so I might try getting to him through Gloria Bell instead.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She’s a woman who likes routine, is Gloria. She goes to certain places at certain times on certain days of the week without fail. I seen this thing on telly about the FBI watching for patterns in people’s behaviour. Persons of interest and that. Apparently, it always gives them away.’

  ‘What the fuck are you on about?’

  ‘You wanna meet in person? I’m just round the corner from you, laying a driveway. I’m due on my dinner. I’ll pick you up. We can go to a caff.’

  Paddy frowned. He was in the mood for a pub. Not a meet with his paid help in a
café. ‘Where? I’ve got to be really careful if I’m out in public. I can’t be seen in O’Brien or Boddlington territory.’

  ‘Bury?’

  ‘Boddlingtons have got their fingers in Bury’s pies.’

  ‘Who the hell is going to recognise you in a Tories’ paradise full of Pakis and pensioners?’

  The Canadian geese soared up into the grey skies, freeing themselves of the shitty shackles of that downtrodden, long-forgotten minor mill-town. Paddy gazed wistfully at them. They were honking in delight at their great escape. Would a change of scenery for him be such a bad thing? Just for an hour? ‘You’ve got a point.’

  Standing by the river’s edge, awaiting his lift, Paddy looked down into the muddy waters, wondering if he should just throw himself in. Eventually, he would be washed out to the Irish Sea if he was lucky. He would be free like those geese, instead of incarcerated in this inescapable maze – one mile in radius – of red-brick terraces, blackened by age and neglect as if even the houses had given up on beauty. Why did his idiot of a do-gooding sister have to exchange his life of a multi-millionaire for the half-life of a down-and-out? No money. No Sheila. No future.

  ‘You meant to do this to me, didn’t you, Kat, you hatchet-faced bitch?’ Paddy heaved a foamy gob of phlegm onto the silty bank, watching the Irwell lick upwards and whip it downstream. ‘Sister bleeding Benedicta screwed her brother over with church bells on.’