Born Bad Page 27

  Sheila’s breath came short with adrenalin. Ever since the security breach, she had felt the threat of an unwelcome visitor in the house like a tight hand around her throat. An ominous, foreboding sensation that she had no intention of discussing with Paddy.

  ‘It’s on its way, love.’ Her hands shook as she poured coffee beans into the Gaggenau coffee machine.

  Tutting, Paddy retied his dressing gown with exaggerated movements. Obviously making sure she got an eyeful of his paunch and saggy, naked undercarriage as a veiled threat or some kind of reminder of his supremacy.

  ‘Fuck this for a game of soldiers,’ he said. ‘Bring it down to me in the spa. I’ve got a mouth like a mink coat but if I stand here watching you faff and fart around, I’m going to blow a frigging fuse.’ His face was flushed with obvious irritation. All signs of his migraine gone, now. Back to normal.

  As he padded away, Sheila exhaled heavily, only then realising that she had been holding her breath. She clutched at the worktop to steady herself. Slowing her breathing to rein in her galloping heartbeat. The hairs on her arms were standing proud in her goose-pimpled flesh.

  She glanced nervously over her shoulder, expecting to see somebody standing there. More than a sixth sense that she was not alone and that she was being watched. But scanning the kitchen, the only signs of life were her, the glittering goldfish in the tank and the gurgling coffee machine. How she wished she could hear the house’s sounds above the noise of the brewing drink and spitting water.

  ‘Calm down, She. Deep breaths. There’s nothing there,’ she whispered to the distorted image of herself in the induction hob’s gleaming black surface.

  She poured the latte into Paddy’s favoured tall glass. Tried to check a reflection of the kitchen in the stainless steel of the machine. But the brushed matt finish would reveal nothing. With a pounding heart and a sense that she was definitely not alone, she turned around. Dropped the cup when she saw the tall man, dressed in all black, wearing that trademark wide-brimmed hat.

  Chapter 44

  Conky

  Running down the stone steps, gun drawn, Conky McFadden’s breath came short; the four-storey bulk of the Bramshott mansion bearing down on him. Sweat was already rolling down his back on this oppressively warm morning. The usual fine mist of Manchester rain falling, though. Fogging his glasses. Heightening the risk. Damned rain.

  ‘Come on, Conks, you fat shag-sack,’ he counselled himself. ‘Don’t screw this up.’

  Heaving open the heavy wood and glass door to the spa, he could now hear Sheila screaming.

  ‘Paddy! Don’t leave me! Somebody, help!’ Her voice was amplified, as though she was calling from the inside of a cathedral. Wailing. Keening. The sounds of mourning. Not good.

  Entering the pool area, Conky drank in the strange scene. There was Sheila, hunched over the body of the boss. The boss, lying in a rich, burgundy puddle of his own blood, which had begun to track along the grout between the tiles, drip-dripping into the turquoise waters of the pool to form a billowing cloud of aubergine. An almost tranquil scene, without the harrowing sounds: spotlit ripples reflecting from the water onto the vaulted ceiling. But Conky spied a tall figure, carrying a holdall – almost too swift to spot, hastening through the door to the boiler room and back stairs on the far side of the complex.

  Squeezing the trigger on the gun, now. A deafening bang that ricocheted around the lofty space. Pain spasmed along Conky’s arm from the recoil. The bullet missed its target narrowly, splintering the architrave of the door as a lick of black fabric from the hem of the attacker’s coat was all that remained in view. Gone. Shit.

  Conky heaved himself across the pool area; skidding in a tributary of the boss’ blood. Above him, the growl of a car reverberated through the ceiling, shaking the still, damp air. No. More of a howl. It was the Bugatti Veyron. Squealing tyres bemoaning the slippery polished concrete of its garaging.

  Two, four, six: Conky bounded up the back stairs, praying he would have time to put a bullet in this bastard before the garage door opened fully. Panting. Feeling the chilli con carne from last night’s dinner push acid up into his throat. Clicking knees.

  At the far end of the cavernous garage, beyond the lesser supercars that were lined up, buffed to showroom perfection in a state of semi-permanent disuse, he saw the Bugatti. Black and white and diminutive. A million pounds’ worth of thrust, quivering like a prized stallion waiting to bolt from its starting gate.

  Conky squinted through his rain-spattered, steamed-up glasses, but could not make out the driver’s face from that distance. Not that it mattered. A glimpse of that beard and the hat was all he really needed to make an ID.

  ‘Stop, bastard!’ he shouted, running along the rows of slumbering vehicles, pointing his gun towards the Bugatti’s tinted rear windows.

  He knew the odds were stacked against him. A 200 mph beast with a getaway driver who had everything to lose by being caught. The automated garage door, rising in segments on the track, only inches from being open now. To shoot, or not to shoot? The boss would kill him if he damaged the car. That’s supposing the boss lived.

  Put a tyre out.

  Two bullets whizzed towards the car but struck concrete uselessly. The Bugatti had screamed away, leaving a momentary cloud of gravel and the lasting stench of exhaust in its wake. Lurching, swerving too fast down the drive. Conky followed in overheated pursuit, wondering if the driver would crash.

  But the gates were standing open.

  No time to think. Conky’s heart felt like it would burst. Flickering memories of running from the violence during the Troubles back home. A young soldier, in those days, wearing a balaclava his mammy had bought that always itched his face. Leaving a Molotov calling card as he sprinted in the opposite direction to the police. Run, Conks. Run! Don’t let him get—

  Too late. The car was nothing more than a howling wind and two red orbs in the distance, reducing to pinpricks.

  On the brink of vomiting, Conky cursed, gasping for breath and clutching his knees. He slapped himself in the forehead with the barrel of his gun. He had failed even to get a clean shot at the tyres. Thwarted by age, the shaking hands of a man with a thyroid problem and four stones of excess lard he could do without. He was nothing but a dinosaur on the brink of extinction, he conceded silently.

  All he could do was cling to the hope that the police would pick up some arsehole, driving like a drunk in a million-pound car. Sirens in the distance said Sheila had phoned for an ambulance, at least.

  But hang on. Why had the damned gates been open? Weren’t they in the midst of war? Conky frowned. It was as if the assailant had planned an automotive getaway all along. He glanced up at the CCTV, buzzing from its vantage point, attached to an ornamental garden lamppost. The tapes could wait.

  Re-entering the spa area, the tang of blood and the smell of chlorine stung his nostrils.

  ‘They got away,’ he said to the forlorn-looking figure, still kneeling beside the boss. ‘I’m so, so sorry. I’ll find them.’

  ‘He’s gonna die!’ Sheila cried. She held her hands aloft, coated in a red so vivid, Conky’s head hurt. ‘My Paddy’s dying.’ The startling blue of her eyes seemed diluted by tears that streamed over the contours of her cheekbones, falling mournfully onto her collarbone.

  Conky felt the boss’ neck for a pulse. A weak flicker beneath his fingertips said he still lived, but only just. Carefully wiping his glasses on the hem of his shirt, he assessed the damage.

  Paddy O’Brien had been sliced down the middle, fatally, judging by the blood loss. Out cold, of course. He lay carefully positioned on his side by the pool’s edge, as though his attacker had clearly intended to display him. Decorated by slices of cucumber, laid in rows along his pyjama-clad flank, reminiscent of a dressed salmon.

  ‘Only one person I know leaves his kills like this,’ Conky said, contemplating the delicate artistry of the incongruous green and white slices. He removed his shirt, pressing it hard against the
gaping wound. Too little, almost certainly too late. ‘Asaf Smolensky.’

  Sheila stared at him, wide-eyed at first. Then, fury burning its way through the tears. ‘The Fish Man? The Boddlingtons’ hit man?’

  Conky nodded slowly, blood oozing between his fingers, already saturating the shirt. Trying not to react to the terrible stench coming from the boss’ sliced lower intestine. Knowing his efforts were near useless. ‘You ever heard of another headcase that does mental shite like this?’

  ‘But this place is supposed to be safe,’ Sheila said, grabbing his arm with a blood-slick hand. ‘A fortress, you said. You saw to it. You put in the new security measures.’

  ‘I did. It is. I don’t know how the hell Smolensky got in here. I swear to you.’

  There was a flash of green in Conky’s peripheral vision. The paramedics had entered the spa. They marched smartly across the pool area, carrying their equipment. One woman. Two men. Flashing blue outside said the police were pulling up too. He manoeuvred Sheila away from Paddy, though she was weeping afresh now.

  ‘Don’t hurt my Pad, will you?’ she begged the woman. Wrapping her arms around herself, smearing her baby pink gym clothes in second-hand red, she looked suddenly frail and lost. Her face streaked with blood; her blonde hair hanging loose. A runny nose and puffy eyes, as though she was trying on widowhood for size.

  But still, Conky thought her beautiful. At that moment, he wanted to embrace her and make it better. Dug the gun, now safely stowed in his trouser pocket, into his upper thigh to remind himself through the pain that he was not there to comfort Sheila and capitalise on Paddy’s misfortune. He was a loyal soldier, sworn to serve his King.

  ‘Sure, it’ll be fine. I’ll get to the bottom of this, Sheila. Don’t you worry,’ he said.

  The police were visible just outside, descending the stone steps. Black uniforms marking them out as interlopers, though chances were they were probably on Paddy’s payroll too. Inside, the paramedics were strapping Paddy onto their stretcher. Bearing him away to Wythenshawe hospital and whatever fate awaited him there.

  Sheila’s thin, steely fingers gripped Conky’s naked torso. Fingernails digging into his hairy love-handles. He felt heat creep into his cheeks. Self-loathing. Guilt for worrying what she might think of his unsightly bulk. Like she’d be eyeing him up when her husband had just been felled! Get a grip on yourself, you foolish, self-indulgent twat.

  She transfixed him with her cobalt blue eyes, sharpening by the second. The lines in her athlete’s face deepening. ‘I want you to do more than get to the bottom of this, Conk. I want you to find the Fish Man and stick a bullet in his skull. And then I want you to get to Khan and Margulies and finish this.’

  ‘Now, let’s not be hasty, because—’

  ‘I said finish it. Finish them.’ Hatred in that small face. ‘And get that wanker Frank over here. Tell him his brother’s been left for dead. And tell him he’d better bring a pair of damned balls.’

  The uniforms were approaching. Speaking into hissing radios on their shoulders. She smiled weakly at them. All butter wouldn’t melt. Thanking them for responding so quickly.

  But when she turned back to Conky, the scorching fires of hell were in those eyes.

  ‘The Boddlingtons set out to end my Paddy. They wanted to kill the King. But I’m not having it. Right? We’re O’Briens. We bow to no one. Do you hear me? Take them down, Conky. That’s an order.’

  Chapter 45

  Conky

  ‘Describe to me what the attacker looked like,’ Ellis James asked him, clicking his biro into life, pad at the ready.

  Conky levered himself down onto the end of the teak sun-lounger by the pool, looking up through the high spa window at the scene that was unfolding at ground level. Dumbfounded by the sight of Sheila, covered with a white honeycomb ambulance blanket, clambering into the back of the ambulance. The gurney that conveyed a wan-faced Paddy had already been installed. Blues and twos started up, making Conky jolt.

  ‘Was he tall, short, fat? Come on, McFadden. You know the drill.’ The detective’s eyes spoke of biting hunger, verging on desperation. He hunkered down beside the sun-lounger – an overly pally air about him as though he were some kind of brother-in-arms.

  ‘I never really saw him,’ Conky said, replaying the discovery over and over again in his mind’s eye like the sort of irritating GIF Sheila sometimes showed him on her Twitter feed. Asaf Smolensky. There was no doubt about it. ‘It was a man. I’m fairly certain of that. But I couldn’t tell you anything more.’

  Ellis James grunted as he took a seat next to Conky on the lounger, shunting himself uncomfortably close. ‘A man.’ He wrote in his notebook. ‘That’s a tonne to go on. Black, white, indigo, violet?’

  Removing his sunglasses and rubbing his face, Conky wanted nothing more than to go to his own place, take a shower, make himself a hot toddy and go to bed. The lunacy of the past weeks had worn him thin and baggy, like overstretched elastic on old man’s pants. ‘I told you. I don’t know.’

  ‘But you saw enough of him to let a couple of shots off, didn’t you?’ Ellis James said, winking. ‘I’ve seen those bullet holes in the doorframe over there. I’ve got a ballistics guy on his way.’ He checked his shitty cheap watch. A Rolex wannabe from some Arndale Centre jewellers that sold carriage and cuckoo clocks. ‘Any minute now, he’ll be here. And I bet if I asked him to take samples from your hand, he’d find cordite on your skin.’ He nudged Conky’s knee with his own like a schoolboy enjoying a smutty joke with a co-conspirator. ‘Come on, McFadden. Show us your big gun.’

  ‘With all due respect, I think you should piss off, detective.’ Conky rose and walked over towards the forensics team, who were dusting for prints. Praying that they didn’t apply for a warrant to search the place. The home cinema alone held an arsenal behind secret panels inset into the walls that would make the Queen’s guard green with envy.

  ‘I’m watching you, girls and boys,’ he told the team in their jumpsuits and overshoes, scouring the spa area for evidence. Parasites. If they found anything incriminating, Paddy would be reliant on the retainers he had paid bent cops over the years to ensure nothing ever made it to court.

  ‘Just let them do what they need to do,’ Sheila had whispered to him as the ambulance men had carefully ministered to the prone form of her husband. ‘If we get shirty with them, they’ll start asking too many questions. We deal with this our own way, right? Remember what I said, Conks. The Fish Man and the Boddlingtons …’ She had drawn a line with her index finger across her neck.

  But that was before that shambolic prick Ellis James had turned up, sniffing like a bloodhound for any trace of weakness or fault in the O’Briens’ wall of secrecy. Greedy eyes all over the place; unsurprising given it was the first time he had ever made it through the door to Paddy’s Bramshott stronghold.

  ‘Stop following me like a wet fart,’ Conky said, turning around to find Ellis James only two paces behind. Clutching that damned notepad. ‘Go and find that Bugatti! That’s a million right there. Can’t be many of those to the pound even in a place like Bramshott. Find the car and you’ll find whoever did this.’

  ‘Had the O’Briens had any kind of threatening letter or phone call that you know of before this attack?’ the detective asked, unperturbed by the stinging rejection.

  Coming to a standstill, Conky looked down at James. Noticed the grubby cuffs on his raincoat and wondered what the chump spent his salary on. It certainly wasn’t dry cleaning.‘There was an incident last night, actually,’ he said. ‘There’s a new alarm system in the house. Mr O’Brien was in bed upstairs, sick with a migraine. I thought maybe he’d got out of bed and triggered it by accident, but when I investigated, there was nobody there. It was as though the system had malfunctioned. It had only been installed that day. Teething problems, I guess.’

  ‘Was the alarm triggered when the attacker struck this morning? Were you on site?’

  ‘I was here, alright, but not in t
he house. I’d just walked down the drive to fetch the post for Mrs O. I never heard the alarm going off. Only thing I heard was Sheila – I mean, Mrs O – screaming her head off. That’s when I ran back inside and saw the attacker making his getaway.’

  Ellis James frowned. ‘I thought you’re meant to be a simple office bod at the builders’ merchants, McFadden. How come you’re so indispensable to the family that Sheila O’Brien has got you checking faults on her alarm system and fetching her post?’ The frown gave way to a faux- perplexed smile that was underscored by pure, undiluted smugness.

  ‘I’m very handy,’ Conky simply said.

  ‘Stay in town where I can find you, please.’ James grabbed his right hand suddenly and sniffed the skin. ‘Soapy?’ He pursed his lips. ‘Been washing your hands in a hurry? Maybe getting rid of a little evidence?’

  Conky snatched his hand back. ‘A: that’s assault and B: I take hand hygiene extremely seriously.’

  When the police had packed up their sneaking suspicions and investigative tools, Conky stood in reverential silence by the puddle of Paddy’s blood. Coagulating now, it was almost the shade of uncooked black pudding. He took out his phone and re-read the text from Sheila, saying Paddy was in a critical condition with no improvement. Once again, he dialled Frank. Straight to voicemail. Subjected to the irritating recording of Frank speaking over the song he was once famous for half a lifetime ago. Duplicitous little dipshit. Conky thumbed his name on the phone’s screen, pondering where he could have absconded to and whether he was somehow in bed with the Boddlingtons. It was the only feasible theory. And the science of being a Loss Adjuster demanded that Conky was methodical and thorough in testing any theory.

  Grabbing the keys to Paddy’s Jaguar, Conky floored his car past Stockport on the M60, following the motorway round past east Manchester. On his right, the undulating green Peaks gave way to the brutal rain-soaked foothills of the Pennines – both encapsulating Manchester in a permanently damp basin where precipitation was always likely. Presently, the great phallic spire of Heaton Park loomed into view, with all its satellite dishes clinging to the top like bristles on a gun-cleaning brush. Unfamiliar territory for him, though he located the neighbourhood of Higher Boddlington easily enough.