Take Two (A psychological thriller) (19 page)

‘Good to know,’ said The Mint. ‘I can get you a better rate for bank deposits, you know that.’ He took a pen from his jacket pocket and a business card from his wallet and scribbled down a number. ‘Transfer the money when you’re ready,’ he said.

Richards pocketed the card. ‘You’re a gentlemen and a scholar,’ he said.

‘You okay? Is this cash shortage a problem?’

‘It was a one-off,’ said Richards. ‘I dealt with it but I’m having problems getting the money back.’ He shrugged. ‘I might end up writing it off in which case I’ll be back to see you.’

‘Always happy to help,’ said The Mint. He raised his glass in salute.

Richards clinked his glass against The Mint’s. ‘You’re a lifesaver,’ he said. He drained his glass and looked at his watch. ‘I’m going to have to love you and leave you.’

‘I’ll stay here and enjoy the bubbly,’ said The Mint. ‘But pick up the tab on your way out.’

CHAPTER 42

Richards cursed under his breath when he saw the bright yellow clamp on the front offside wheel of his Porsche.  There was no ticket under the windscreen wipers but he saw two heavy-set men in bomber jackets leaning against a Range Rover. They both had shaved heads. One was just over six feet tall with a tattoo of a cobweb across his neck. The other was shorter and wider and had a nose that had been broken in the past and healed badly. He had LOVE tattooed across the knuckles of his left hand and HAT across the right. It looked as if it had once said HATE but the E had faded with time.

The two men walked over slowly, their arms swinging by their sides. They had the swagger of men who were used to being feared because of their size. Richards took a pack of cigars from his coat pocket.

The two men stopped a few feet from him.  Broken Nose folded his arms and stared at Richards. Richards smiled at the attempt at intimidation. It had been a long, long time since he had been intimidated by another man, especially one who clearly had an IQ barely in double figures.

Cobweb Tattoo snorted and then spat greenish phlegm onto the pavement. ‘Nice motor. The 550 horsepower Turbo S, yeah?’

‘Yeah,’ said Richards. ‘Nice clamp. Fell off the back of a lorry, did it?’

Cobweb Tattoo ignored the sarcasm. ‘What would a car like that cost? A hundred  grand?’

‘Closer to a hundred and twenty, with all the extras,’ said Richards.  ‘Now are you going to take that clamp off, or not?’ He lit a cigar.

‘That’s up to you, innit?’ said Broken Nose. ‘You’re the one who parked on private property.’

‘Didn’t know it was private,’ said Richards.

‘There’s a sign,’ said Broken Nose.

‘I didn’t see a sign.’

‘It’s over there,’ said Broken Nose, pointing at a sign the size of a postcard on a brick wall some distance away.

‘Look mate, what’s your name?’ Richards asked Cobweb Tattoo.

‘We don’t give out our names,’ he said. He had a thick neck and over-developed forearms that came from steroid abuse rather than exercise.

‘Fair enough,’ said Richards. ‘Look, can we just let this slide? It’s Saturday. Who knew it’d be a problem at the weekend?’

‘No can do,’ said Cobweb Tattoo. ‘Once the clamp goes on, it doesn’t come off until you pay.’

‘How much?’

Cobweb Tattoo pointed at the sign. ‘Same as it says over there. Two hundred quid.’

‘Two hundred pounds? Are you having a laugh?’

Cobweb Tattoo folded his arms. ‘Up to you, pal,’ he said. ‘The car stays where it is until you pay.’

‘And if I don’t pay?’

‘Then we’ll have the car towed away and you’ll have to pay five hundred.’

‘Now you’re definitely having a laugh,’ said Richards.

‘Do we look like we’re having a laugh?’ growled Broken Nose.

‘No,’ said Richards. ‘You don’t. And does everyone pay?’

Cobweb Tattoo nodded. ‘They moan and they whine and sometimes they threaten us but at the end of the day, yeah, everyone pays.’

Richards took out a roll of banknotes from his pocket and peeled off four fifties. He handed them to Cobweb Tattoo.  The man grinned and pocketed the cash. Broken Nose took a set of keys from a pouch on his belt and knelt down by the clamp.

Richards took a step back and took out his phone. He took a photograph of Cobweb Tattoo. ‘Here, you can’t take our picture,’ he said.   Broken Nose looked up and Richards snapped a picture of his face. ‘Won’t do you any good anyway, mate. We’re totally legal. The cops won’t do anything. You’re on private property.’

Richards turned around and took a photograph of the Range Rover’s number plate. ‘I don’t give a toss about the cops, mate,’ he said, and put the phone away.

Broken Nose lifted up the clamp and carried it over to the Range Rover.

‘Do you want a receipt, then?’ asked Cobweb Tattoo.

Richards smiled. Let me explain to you what’s going to happen, whatever your name is,’ he said. ‘Then you can decide whether or not I get a receipt.’

Broken Nose raised the tailgate of the Range Rover and put the clamp away.

‘See now, what I’m going to do is give the pictures to a good friend of mine, and he’ll know everything there is to know about you and your mate within a few hours. Soon as he knows where you live, you and your ugly mate are gonna get bricks through your windows and your tyres are going to be slashed.’  Richards sucked on his cigar. ‘I know, you’re thinking that a brick through your window and a slashed tyre is no big thing, but my mate and his pals will be doing that just so you know what’s coming next. You got kids?’ Richards grinned. ‘Yeah, I can see from the look on your face that you’ve got kids. Well, your kids are going to need a lot of very expensive dental work because my mate will make sure they get smashed in the mouth with a monkey wrench. Now, if they’re really young, they’ll have their second teeth to look forward to, but if not…’  Richards shrugged and blew smoke at the man.

‘Hey, Darren, are you coming or what?’ shouted Broken Nose.  Cobweb Tattoo ignored him.

‘Then your wife, she’s going to get battery acid thrown in her face. Might blind her. Might not. But however it works out, Darren, she’s not going to be pretty to look at.’ Richards grinned. ‘And you? Well, Darren old mate, they’ll probably leave you alone. But you can spend the rest of your life knowing what I did to your wife and kids. All because of two hundred fucking quid.’

‘Darren, come on!’ shouted Broken Nose.

‘Fuck off!’ yelled Cobweb Tattoo.

‘So the question you’ve got to ask yourself, Darren, is do you want to give me a receipt for that two hundred quid, or do you want to give me the money back and be on your way? No pressure, Darren, you can decide. I don’t give a fuck either way. My mate owes me a favour. It won’t cost me a thing.’

Richards took another pull on his cigar and shrugged carelessly. He turned towards his car but stopped when Cobweb Tattoo thrust the notes at him. Richards took the money and got into his car.  As he drove away, Broken Nose was shouting at Cobweb Tattoo and jabbing his finger at his face. Richards took a last look in his driving mirror just in time to see Cobweb Tattoo rear back and head-butt his colleague.

CHAPTER 43

There was a lot Carolyn Castle didn’t know about Maxwell Dunbar. She didn’t know he’d been in prison, for instance. He’d served three and a half years of a seven year sentence for GBH, which the police referred to as Grievous Bodily Harm but which Dunbar described as a Good Bloody Hiding.  That was when he was much younger and, ever since, he’d made sure that if and when he did get physical with someone there were no witnesses, no CCTV and, ideally, a cast-iron alibi already prepared.  She also didn’t know he paid policemen for information. Dunbar liked to give the impression he was once a police officer, a Flying Squad detective no less, but, in fact, he’d never been able to pass the medical. Ever since he had been a teenager he’d struggled with Type 2 diabetes and his doctor was now threatening to start him on insulin injections.  But he did have friends on several police forces, though when it came to providing him with information they were friends who needed cash in a brown envelope before they’d come up with the goods.  Carolyn also didn’t know the truth about how Dunbar had dealt with her stalker. A detective friend of Dunbar’s had printed off the man’s Police National Computer file and, after reading, it Dunbar had realised a softly-softly approach wasn’t going to work. The stalker’s name was Thomas Bale and he’d been in and out of mental institutions for most of his adult life. He was thirty-seven, had an IQ of borderline retarded, and had schizophrenia that was just about controlled by medication.  Carolyn wasn’t the first actress he’d fixated on. One of the stars of Emmerdale had taken out a restraining order against him after he’d turned up on her doorstep with a bunch of roses.

Carolyn had made it clear she didn’t want to take legal action against Bale because of the publicity it would create. And until Bale actually physically threatened or assaulted her, the police wouldn’t do anything.  Dunbar went around to see Bale to see if he could talk some sense into him but it was clear within the first few minutes that wasn’t going to happen. He was a small weasely man with no chin and an annoying stammer and he kept insisting his human rights meant he was free to talk to whoever he wanted and there was no law against him writing to her or even standing outside her house.  Bale spent a lot of time on the internet and he was able to quote his rights at length, so Dunbar had just nodded and listened. When Bale had finished speaking, Dunbar had slipped a set of brass knuckledusters onto his right hand and then punched Bale where most men had a chin, breaking his jaw and splintering his teeth.  Dunbar had then grabbed Bale by the throat and told him if he ever contacted Carolyn Castle again, he would come back with a gun.  Then he’d hit him in the groin, hard.  He’d left Bale curled up in a ball on the floor and the next day he’d billed Carolyn for two grand.

Dunbar was sitting in his front room with a glass of whisky and Coke and his mobile phone on the coffee table in front of him, considering his options. He knew Warwick Richards, or at least knew of him.  And one thing he knew for sure was that Warwick Richards wouldn’t be warned off with a knuckle duster. The honest thing to do would be to draw up a brief report on Richards and tell Carolyn not to go near him with or without a bargepole.  But if he did that, he’d only be able to bill her for a few hundred. If he was lucky, he might get to keep the five hundred she’d given him.  He’d paid the cheque into his bank first thing on Monday morning and it was now Wednesday and it had cleared.  The last thing he wanted to do was to start handing back money.  Besides, Carolyn Castle had more money than she could shake a stick at.

There was a way he could squeeze more money from the situation, but that would mean taking a risk. He took another gulp of whisky and reached for his phone. He tapped out the number from the business card Carolyn had given him. When Richards answered he sounded angry. ‘Who the fuck is this?’

‘You don’t know me Mr Richards but…’

‘If I don’t know you why the fuck are you calling this number?’ asked Richards.

‘I just want…’

‘Fuck what you want,’ snarled Richards. ‘This is my personal phone, you call me again and I’ll track you down and break your legs.’

Richards ended the call. Dunbar took the phone away from his ear and looked at it. ‘Nice,’ he muttered. He took another pull at his whisky, then tapped out an SMS. Two words. ‘Carolyn Castle.’

Ten seconds after he sent the message the phone rang. Dunbar grinned and let it ring for a while before taking the call. ‘Yes?’ he said.

‘Who the fuck are you?’

‘The name’s Maxwell Dunbar. And we need to talk.’

‘About what?’

‘You got my message. You know about what.’

‘And?’

‘She’s a client of mine,’ said Dunbar.

‘Is that right?’ said Richards.

‘That’s right.’

‘And what are you? Her lawyer?’

‘I’m a private detective,’ said Dunbar. ‘Look, we need to meet.’

‘I don’t think we do,’ said Richards.

‘We need to talk.’

‘About what?’

‘I don’t think you really want to do this over the phone, do you?’

There was a long pause. ‘Okay,’ said Richards eventually. ‘Give me your address and I’ll come around.’

‘To be honest, I’d prefer somewhere a bit more public,’ said Dunbar. ‘You’ve got a bit of a reputation. Where are you?’

‘Who the fuck do you think you are, asking me where I am? What’s it to you where I am?’

‘I was just trying to make your life a bit easier, that’s all,’ said Dunbar. ‘If you were in the club, I could come up West.’

‘You wanna come to the club?’

‘For fuck’s sake no. I’m not doing the lion’s den thing. But I can see you in Leicester Square.’

‘Can you be there in two hours?’

Dunbar looked at his watch. ‘Nah, I’ve got something on. But I can be there at eight. But I need you to be there on your own, okay?’

‘And how will I recognise you?’

‘I’ll recognise you,’ said Dunbar. There were two printed sheets on the coffee table next to the bottle of whisky. Information from the Police National Computer, including a head and shoulders photograph.  ‘I want you to come on your own.’

‘Fuck that,’ said Richards. ‘I don’t know you from Adam.’

‘Well if you do bring someone, make sure they keep their distance. I don’t think you’d want anyone listening in on what I’ve got to tell you.’  Dunbar cut the connection and drained his glass. He smiled. So far, so good.

CHAPTER 44

Richards rode down in the private lift with Halpin. ‘So who is this guy, boss?’ asked Halpin. He was wearing a heavy black overcoat with the collar turned up.  There was a clear plastic earpiece in his right ear that allowed him to hear what was being said by the security staff and there was a transceiver clipped to his belt.

‘Just some private eye,’ said Richards. ‘Once we’re outside keep an eye on me but keep your distance.’

‘You sure about that?’

‘He’s not going to try anything in Leicester Square on a Wednesday evening,’ said Richards. ‘Anyway I think he’s the one who’s scared.’