The Cover Up Page 22

  ‘Me? What the bloody hell have I done?’

  ‘You’re guilty of benefit fraud, for a start.’

  His sister rounded on him, her hard, well-scrubbed face mere inches away. She poked him in the shoulder. Strong fingers belonging to a woman who was no stranger to hard domestic work. ‘Are you Kenneth Wainwright? Really? Are you entitled to his disability benefits? His council tax benefit? His rent rebate? Do you really think the police and the tax man will take a kindly view on any of this? You open your mouth, and we’re both in it up to our eyeballs, Patrick.’

  Staring into the middle distance, he monitored the laboured pounding of his heart. Breathing shallow and fast. Was that pain he felt in his left side or just wind from Brenda’s breakfast fry-up? Trying to slow everything down, inhaling and exhaling slowly, he patted Katrina’s arm in a gesture of fragile truce. No point dying in the midst of an argument with the only person remaining who gave anything approaching a shit about the old Paddy O’Brien.

  But as he contemplated facing down death yet again, he thought he spotted someone familiar through the wider spaced trunks of a copse of oaks. A big Asian man, walking an aggressive-looking dog.

  ‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself and let’s get going,’ Katrina said, pushing his hand away. Peeling her veil back, where the wind had stuck it to her chin.

  ‘Shush!’ Paddy held his hand up. Studying the man, who was facing in their direction but whose attentions lay elsewhere as he waited for the Staffordshire bull terrier to retrieve the stick he had thrown. And then it clicked. Paddy gasped. ‘Get down!’ he cried, motioning that his sister should duck. Here they both were, on the crest of a hill, with the water on one side and the man the other – the last person he needed to see.

  ‘What on earth is wrong with you?’ Katrina yelped as Paddy pulled her down the stone slope that dropped steeply to the bleak water’s edge.

  ‘Nadeem or Nasim or something. It’s Tariq Khan’s bloody lad! His second cousin or some crap, I heard.’

  Katrina shook him loose. ‘What of it?’

  ‘He works with Asaf Smolensky. The Fish Man. The Boddlington’s muscle. If he spots me, I’m a goner.’

  They crept along some five or ten metres, when a stick hurtled over the lip of the reservoir and down the slope to where they crouched. There was excitable barking and a man’s whistle from the other side. But then, scampering and the heavy panting of a muscle-bound dog on a mission.

  ‘Damn it! The bleeding dog’s gonna come and get the stick. It’ll lead him right to me.’

  ‘Rubbish.’ Sister Benedicta’s morning constitutional was apparently not about to be disrupted by a dog. ‘It will never find its way through the fence.’

  Except it had. The stocky terrier bounded into view at the top of the hill. Scudded down the stone side at full pelt, suddenly more interested in the lingering smell of Brenda’s bacon on Paddy’s trousers than the stick. It snarled, latching onto the ankle of his trousers with barred teeth.

  ‘Help! Jesus, Kat. Get it off me!’

  On the other side, getting closer, he could hear Tariq’s man calling out. ‘Rihanna!’

  ‘Rihanna?!’ Paddy glared in disbelief at the rabid dog.

  Nasim or Nadeem or whatever the hell he was called was getting closer. ‘Rihanna. Come to Daddy!’

  Paddy looked at his sister, all pleading eyes, as he had often done when they had been little. Katrina placed a well-aimed kick up Rihanna’s behind. The dog whimpered and howled. Its owner appeared on the rim above them.

  ‘Turn away!’ Katrina whispered.

  Paddy dropped to the ground, facing the water. Pretended to wipe mud from his shoe.

  Cowed, the dog picked the stick up in its mouth and skulked back up to the top. Reunited with its owner, the two lingered on the crest of the hill for a moment too long.

  ‘Don’t look,’ Katrina muttered.

  Paddy could hear the man fussing over his dog, but steadfastly kept his head down.

  ‘They’re gone,’ Katrina said.

  Clutching at his chest, Paddy heaved himself back to standing. ‘Do you think he saw me?’

  ‘No way of telling.’

  ‘I told you this walk was a terrible bleeding idea.’

  When Katrina had pulled her battered old Volvo estate up alongside the kerb of a quiet side street, some hundred yards from Kenneth Wainwright’s house, he had taken the envelope containing the extra money he had begged her to give him. She had delivered some patronising bloody sermon or other, of course, about not blowing it all down the pub but spending it on healthy food. He had yeah-yeah’d her and clambered out, his legs throbbing from overuse. The adrenalin of almost having been spotted by a Boddlington, of all people, had made him feel as though razor wire were being dragged through every blood vessel in his body. The old bitch had wanted to put him through the wringer. He had been certain of it. Sister Benedicta liked the ungodly to sample purgatory while they were still living.

  As he stood over Brenda’s prone body in a corner of her dingy bedroom, with his fist raised in readiness for another revitalising punch, the small part of Paddy that hadn’t been absorbed in the hellfire of the rage mulled over his situation. Katrina and Sheila had stolen everything from him and had left him castrated. Conky had betrayed his memory by sleeping with his widow before the marital bed was even cold. Lev Bell had not been made to pay and proved more elusive than a marauding nocturnal slug that left only a silver trail as a clue it had ever been there. Frustrated and angry, he wanted to hurt them all.

  As Paddy kicked Brenda in the kidneys, failing to notice her son, Kyle observing through the crack in the bedroom door, he knew what to do. Where Paddy had had his daughters stolen from him, Leviticus Bell would have his mother snatched away and Sheila would have her beloved old slag of a business partner wiped off the face of the earth.

  ‘I’m sorry, Kenneth! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you, love,’ Brenda said, holding her hands defensively over her head and middle. Weeping like the weak puddle of piss Paddy knew she was.

  Abandoning her in that shitty bedroom that stank of sex, dust and stale bedding, Paddy pulled on his clothes, pushed past Kyle on the landing. The boy was giving him evils.

  ‘What you staring at, you sneaky little shite? Go and make your Mam a brew.’

  He clipped the kid around the ear just to show him who was boss. Spotty runt. Descended, grabbed his coat and left, feeling almost like a new man. As soon as he had slammed the door to Brenda’s terrace behind him, he dialled Hank. Chirpy, dim arsehole was full of bonhomie on the other end, like it was a fresh summer’s morning instead of a dank early evening, barely scraping ten degrees. Perhaps he was boning some bird.

  ‘Paddy! I was just thinking about you.’

  ‘Oh yeah. Listen. The job’s changed.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Uncertainty in his voice.

  ‘I’ll pay you extra, but you’ve got to go through with it like a man. No cop-outs.’ Paddy picked up his pace, positively swaggering down the street now, feeling so much better for clawing a little control back over his life and the destinies of others. ‘Get close to Gloria. Do her odd jobs or summat. Let her trust you, and pump her for everything you can about what Sheila’s up to. Right? Then …’ He had reached his front door and withdrawn his key, poised to insert it into the scratched and battered Yale. Spotted the pub at the end of the street in his peripheral vision. Felt the call of a nice pint of strong lager. A couple of bevvies wouldn’t hurt.

  ‘What? What do I have to go through with?’

  ‘I want you to top her.’

  Chapter 30

  Sheila

  ‘As you can see, Mrs O’Brien,’ the letting agent said, stalking in her cheap heels and tight skirt over to the aluminium windows and tapping on the glass. ‘The views from up here are cracking. You can see all of town. Spinningfields from the smaller office. The courts from this one.’ She started to giggle. ‘You can even see if there’s any nice-looking fellers in t
he bar down there! Save you a job going, if they’re all a bit rough!’ Her eyes shone with the naivety of the young, single and hopeful. No ring.

  ‘Fellers don’t look at me anymore, love. And I’m in a relationship.’ The blemish-free girl, with her mane of tumbling blonde locks made Sheila feel old. Damn her. Why couldn’t they have lined her up with an agent who was a bloke or an older woman? ‘The rent’s a bit pricey. I understand you’ve got quite a few units up for grabs.’ There was a deal to be done, here. There was always a deal to be done in a city that was still on one bended knee, post-recession.

  The girl shook her head. Her full cheeks flushed pink beneath her foundation. ‘Oh, you’d be surprised. We’ve just let the entire penthouse suite.’

  Sheila peered down at the shining damp pavements below, watching the umbrellas unfurl and swirl in discs of bright colour as the rain started to fall anew. She checked her watch. Twenty minutes into the appointment and still Gloria hadn’t arrived, though she’d been given a clean bill of health and discharged by the hospital. It was most unlike Jesus’s favourite sunbeam to be tardy. Pain in the arse. And her blackmailing dipshit of a son still hadn’t been in touch about the SIM card. ‘Who to?’

  ‘Well, it’s the developer that refurbished the block actually. One of his subsidiary companies. He’s doing a lot in the city.’

  ‘Bruntwood?’

  ‘No. This isn’t a Bruntwood block. It’s a Bancroft building. The boss’s head offices are in Birmingham but he wanted a Manchester base for his subsidiary, seeing as he’s starting to expand up here.’

  Sheila swung around to face the letting agent. The air-con vent in the office was suddenly blasting out icy air. The grey partition walls seemed to be moving further and further in towards her. ‘Come again.’

  ‘Bancroft. Didn’t you see the sign as you walked in?’

  ‘I thought this was Hardacre Tower.’

  ‘Yeah.’ The girl rolled her eyes in a way Sheila didn’t entirely appreciate. Cheeky cow. ‘But it’s owned by Nigel Bancroft. All his properties are Bancroft buildings. Didn’t you see the logo in reception with the big BB and the wings? He’s got a block up near Piccadilly too. You want to see that? We’ve got a lovely suite going there for a lot less than this. My agency does all his lettings.’

  Sheila had to get out of there. Fast. Had to warn Gloria. There was shitting on your own doorstep and there was this. There wasn’t even a phrase for this level of lunacy. ‘Has Bancroft moved in?

  ‘Oh yes. Last week. Why? Have you heard of him?’

  Marching to the lifts, Sheila pressed the button impatiently. Pressed it again. Tapping her Louboutins on the marble tiled floor. She held her Chanel tote as close to her body as possible, wondering if she could just upend the entire bloody thing onto her head if Bancroft turned out to be in the lift on the way down. Shit, shit, shit.

  ‘Is there a problem?’ the letting agent asked. ‘Have I offended you?’ She looked as though she was about to cry. Pink blotching starting to crawl its way up her pale neck.

  Pulling out her oversized Prada shades, Sheila shook her head. ‘No, love. I just need air. These modern offices … you know.’

  But she noticed the lift was still on an upper floor. Double digits showing on the digital display.

  ‘What number is the penthouse?’

  ‘Fifteen,’ the girl said.

  The lift was on fifteen, according to the poison-green glowing numbers that shone brightly on that display. It was coming from the penthouse.

  ‘I’ll walk. I need the exercise,’ she said, beckoning the girl to follow. Turning her ankle in haste. ‘Come on. Let’s go straight to the Victorian conversion near Albert Square.’ She pushed open the door to the stairwell. Turned to the girl. ‘That’s not a Bancroft place, is it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Right, then. Let’s go. You got a car? You can give me a lift. The vibes are all wrong here, I’m afraid.’

  Climbing into the girl’s cramped Fiat that was adorned with the letting agency’s livery, Sheila whipped out her phone, turned it off silent and thumbed a text to Gloria.

  Where the hell are you? Do NOT go to Hardacre Tower. Meet me at Pankhurst Mansions near Spring Gardens/Albert Square.

  Bloody Gloria and her new-found lovesick, lackadaisical bullshit.

  As the girl hung a sharp left onto Quay Street, Sheila’s phone pinged.

  ‘At last!’

  Unlocking the screen, she expected to see a message from Gloria. She was yearning to tell her about Bancroft’s legitimate expansion into Manchester, creeping like a mutating virus into the fibre of the city’s upper echelons as well as trying to infiltrate and infect its underbelly. But it wasn’t Gloria, contrite that she was running late.

  Still no sign of my dad. Been in town, handing out missing person flyers at the station. Are you around? Meet me at The Midland Hotel in half an hour? Tariq.

  Stop, start. Stop, start. The Fiat was making poor progress in the mid-afternoon traffic. At her side, the letting agent waxed lyrical about the glorious, almost ecclesiastical interior of Pankhurst Mansions. The windscreen wipers swept left and right, left and right with a hee-haw sound that grated. Bancroft was in town. Lev still hadn’t got her SIM card. Conky was calling her constantly to ask why she was behaving coolly towards him; why he’d had to rely on Katrina to sort his legal representation and get the charge of firearms possession dropped.

  Sighing, she texted Tariq back, dimly aware of a white van that had been two cars behind since they had left the girl’s parking spot near the Opera House.

  OK. Make it 40 mins. Book the room under Mr Boddlington. I’ll find you. S.

  Now, she felt almost cheery at the prospect of their fourth meeting inside a week. Tariq Khan couldn’t get enough of her, nor could she of him. She pictured his pleasantly hairy, toned forearms and almost gasped. This was more like it. This was an excellent antidote to the shitty stress of being south Manchester’s crime boss.

  Suppressing a smirk, she climbed out of the Fiat and looked up at the beautiful sandstone Victorian building.

  ‘It used to be a bank,’ the letting agent said, juggling her clipboard and slinging her PVC bag over her shoulder as she locked the car. ‘It’s got a lovely oak staircase. I think you’ll like this.’

  The place was elegant and had been beautifully divided up into multiple office spaces, all with arched, mullioned windows. High ceilings made it feel more spacious and Sheila loved the original cast-iron fireplace that was in the office she would be claiming for herself. Better than that shithole of a builders’ merchants, any day of the week. There was parking, ample enough to accommodate her Rolls Royce in a basement car park, accessed from a one-way street at the back. Shuttered. High security on reception. Preferential rents, as it was away from the financial district. Close enough to China Town to get one of the visiting cleaners to nip out and get Chinese as the occasional lunchtime treat. Gloriously close to King Street and St Anne’s Square for a spot of shopping when the mood took her.

  Looking out onto the Georgian building opposite, she watched all the office bods – the women, in their beige, Next shift-dresses and the men, in their white shirts and blue ties – beavering away at their desks beneath glaring strip-lighting, hunched over their computers. It was an old, cramped Mancunian street on the slightly wrong side of town. A street lined with double parking. A yellow VW Beetle with a female driver, applying mascara in her rear-view mirror. An empty Ford Focus, covered in birdshit. A white Transit van, containing a middle-aged man, wearing a stupid baseball cap the wrong way round, who glanced up at her and hastily backed away from his window. This was Every Street. Anonymous as hell. As the offices for a bent cleaning agency that was staffed with trafficked women from Africa and Asia and those whose visas had simply run out, it was perfect.

  ‘I’ll take it. Where do I sign?’

  The girl beamed at her. ‘Magic. What about your business partner though?’

  Chapter 31

&n
bsp; Gloria

  ‘Bob! Bob, where are you?’ Gloria turned on the spot, wondering where her boyfriend had disappeared to now. But the maize towered densely all around her – its leafy tops, sun-scorched and past their best, reaching far above her head.

  Why had they had to spend the morning in a maize maze in the middle of Cumbria?

  ‘What kind of blasted date is this?’ Gloria asked herself as she ran to the end of the row, turning left, only to find a dead end. Her heartbeat quickened yet again; her chest was screaming after the battering it had taken from the smoke of the explosion. ‘Why on earth couldn’t we have just gone for a drive round the local churches like I wanted?’ she muttered angrily as she probed the passage to the right. Coughing. Feeling disappointment acutely, she imitated Bob’s voice – a strange mix of nasal rapid-fire Mancunian and Lancashire-borders country drawl. I’m tekkin you to the maize maze, Gloria. You’ll love it. It’s reet good fun. ‘Reet good fun, indeed! I’ll give him reet good fun when I find him.’ More coughing.

  ‘Boo!’

  Gloria yelped and took a step backwards as Bob appeared from between the giant stalks. ‘Good Lord, Robert! There’s no need to startle me like that.’ She clasped her hand to her chest, annoyed by the way in which her paramour had been laughing at her, as though she was providing him with a good morning’s entertainment like some life-sized doll.

  ‘Your face! It’s a picture.’ Bob bent over, his delight seeming overdone like a clown’s slapstick in a pantomime.

  There was something beyond the laughter in his eyes, Gloria assessed. She reasoned that it was, in all likelihood, hurt. Perhaps he’d overheard her mocking him. But there was a cynical part of Gloria that wondered if a little predatory calculation wasn’t behind those blue, blue eyes. Cruelty, too.

  ‘Are you getting a kick out of me being … discombobulated by this?’ she said, anger, disappointment and an unnerving sense of foreboding laying heavy on top of her early morning coffee.