The Ninth Step - John Milton #8 (John Milton Thrillers) (30 page)

The mention of the old case had perturbed Bruce. He remembered it very well. It had been his first encounter with the Fabian family and the first time that he had accepted their largesse in order to smooth away potential legal problems. He had been one of the CID officers who had been put onto the team to investigate the robbery and the murder that had followed it. He had been junior then, a freshly minted detective constable, and, in exchange for a considerable sum, he had fed Fabian enough information that it had been possible to shield Marcus, Spencer and Eddie from any serious threat. He had believed that the matter was at an end, but now this reporter was ready to stir that all up. Dewey’s last question, before Fabian had escorted her to the door, was to seek his thoughts on whether his adopted son’s suicide, in the driveway of his daughter’s house, might be connected to the story that she and Eddie had been ready to publish together.

Frankie had ordered Bruce to watch Dewey. And then she had met John Smith, and her involvement in Fabian’s troubles had deepened. Fabian had told Bruce to bring her to him. He knew, from experience, that the future did not bode well for her, but he did not concern himself with that. Fabian’s money insulated him from the annoyances of a pricked conscience.

He glanced into the mirrors and saw the journalist walking north, on the same side of the road as him. Banks was behind her. Edwards was waiting against the wall of the development, before the guardhouse, and as she drew nearer, he pushed himself upright and made his way down the middle of the pavement in her direction. Bruce watched as her expression changed from one of pensive thought to alarm. The two detectives timed their approaches perfectly, with Banks placing his hand on her elbow just as Edwards took out his warrant card and held it up before her face, too quickly for her to note anything but the badge and the suggestion of authority. Edwards stepped to the side as Banks impelled her onward, his hand still around her elbow, Edwards taking her other arm as she came alongside. She didn’t struggle. She didn’t shout or scream. Bruce had used the same tactics before, whenever Fabian wanted someone removed from the street with the minimum of fuss and bother, and it had always worked this way.

Bruce watched as the two constables marched the woman up the street to the car. Banks was nearest to the Ford; he reached out and opened the door before hurrying around to the opposite side. Edwards placed his hand atop the woman’s head and pushed down, forcing her into the cabin. Edwards got in next to her, pressing her into the middle of the three seats. Banks opened the roadside door and got in, the two men pinning her between them. They continued to play it official, Banks deflecting Dewey’s complaint with a polite, “We just have some questions for you, ma’am,” but Bruce could see that the penny had started to drop. He pulled away just as Dewey reached out for the door, Edwards catching her arm before her fingers could reach the handle and pushing it back down to her side.

“Help!” she yelled out. “Help me!”

There was no one near them to hear her. Bruce had the can of technical-grade chloroform that they had previously used on Eddie Fabian on the front seat. He took it and the rag that was next to it and passed it back to Edwards. He unscrewed the top, saturated the rag with it, and then pressed it to Dewey’s mouth and held it there. Her protests were muffled by the rag and then, quickly, they became mumbles and moans as the chemical took effect. Her eyes rolled back in their sockets, her head tipped back and she was quiet.

“All okay?” Bruce asked, glancing up into the mirror.

“She’s out.”

“Open a fucking window,” he said. “We’ll all pass out otherwise.”

Edwards did as he was told. Bruce turned his attention back to the road and started the journey to the west.

ALEX HICKS parked the car next to the pub. It was quiet, with just a handful of other cars parked in the wide space. He pulled down the visor and flicked on the courtesy light that illuminated the vanity mirror. His face was blackened and bruised. There was a cut along the line of his cheekbone where Milton had struck him, dried blood already crusted over it. His right eye was closed from the swollen purple contusion that spread out from a point on his brow, three darker indentations betraying the impact of Milton’s knuckles. He looked terrible. He looked as if he had been given a thorough beating, which was exactly what he wanted to look like. He knew that his future would depend upon his ability to present compelling physical evidence to corroborate the story that he and Milton had concocted.

But that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt like hell.

He pushed the visor back, took a deep breath to compose himself, unclipped the seat belt and stepped outside. He heard the sound of muffled music from the jukebox in the main room of the pub, the occasional muted snatch of conversation. He was committed now. If he wanted to extricate himself from the quagmire into which he had allowed himself to slip, he had to go through with the plan. There was no other way.

He opened the door to the function room and went inside. It was brightly lit, and he had to blink until his eyes adjusted from the murk outside. The men were arranged around the table, empty pint glasses set out before them. He saw Gillan, Connolly, Woodward and Shepherd.

They turned at his entrance. “Hicks.” Woodward half stood. “What the fuck…?”

He didn’t have to work particularly hard to sell the injuries. Milton had not held back. Hicks had stomached it, closed his eyes and absorbed the punishment. He had thought, as Milton worked him over, that perhaps this was penance for the things that he had done and the things that he had allowed to be done. Atonement for his greed. He could have no complaints.

“Where’s the general?”

He limped across the room and slumped down into one of the empty chairs.

“What happened to you?”

“The general. Where is he?”

“What happened?”

“You said he was coming. I need to talk to him. Right now.”

HICKS REMAINED at the table while they waited for Higgins to arrive. The others tried to get him to speak, to tell them what had happened, but he said that he was in pain and that he would rather wait.

He heard the sound of a car driving across the gravel after twenty minutes, its headlights shining through the uncovered windows. Connolly stood and crossed the room to look out the window. “He’s here.”

Hicks heard the sound of a car door slamming shut and then the crunch of footsteps. Higgins opened the door and came inside. He was wearing a tweed jacket and salmon pink cord trousers. He came inside and, as he registered the men, his gaze stopped on Hicks. The anger slipped away, to be replaced by confusion.

“What happened?”

“We’ve got trouble, sir,” Hicks said.

“I already know that. Who did that to you?”

“His name is Milton.”

“Who?”

“He’s bad news, sir.”

The old man paused, his brow wrinkling as he tried to remember. “Milton. I know the name.”

“He used to be in the Regiment. He told me to tell you. He said you’d remember him.”

“
John
Milton?”

“Yes.”

“I do remember. He was good. Very good. MI6 poached him. He went into intelligence.”

“Yes, sir. The Firm. Group Fifteen. He was a headhunter, in the same unit they tabbed me for. He was the senior agent when I was being tested. It was him who bounced me out.”

“
He
did this to you?”

“Yes, sir. This afternoon.”

“Why?”

“It was Milton’s car I saw when Eddie Fabian died. Milton killed him.”

“What? How do you know that?”

“Because he told me.”

Hicks said it and tried to make it sound plausible. There were so many ways that he could be tripped up, and he tried not to think about them. If he allowed even the smallest sliver of doubt to enter his thinking, he wouldn’t be able to persuade Higgins that he was telling the truth.

Higgins sat. “This doesn’t make any sense, Corporal.”

“Milton saw me the night Fabian died. I didn’t think he did—I was in a ditch—but he did. And then he saw my car. We’d parked it up the road.”

“That’s true,” Shepherd said. “But we—”

“He’s observant. He saw it. Took the plate and got my details. He’s been following me ever since.”

Higgins closed his eyes.

“He jumped me. Put my lights out. I woke up and he had a gun in my face. I would never have said anything if it was just me, but he knew about my family. He threatened them. My kids. He said he’d kill them all if I didn’t tell him what he wanted to know. I know what Milton is capable of. He would have done it.”

Higgins raised a hand. “Wait a minute. Go back. What did Fabian have to do with Milton?”

“Milton’s freelancing. He’s been working for Frankie Fabian.”

Higgins scowled. “I don’t understand. Why would Fabian have Milton kill his own son?”

Hicks closed his eyes, desperately trying to remember the exact way that he and Milton had put the explanation together. “Eddie was involved with the Fabian family business. Milton said there was a robbery, years ago, and this guard got shot. Eddie was there. He regretted what happened, and he couldn’t keep it to himself any longer. Guilt. Eddie was going to grass them all up. But his old man found out.”

Higgins was staring right at Hicks. “Okay. Let me get this straight. Milton is an assassin.”

“Yes.”

“And Frankie Fabian pays Milton to kill Eddie Fabian.”

“Yes, sir. Milton drugged him, gassed him, made it look like he’d topped himself.”

Higgins frowned. Hicks didn’t know if he was making headway or not. “But then Milton went to the funeral. You saw him—you all did.”

“Yes, sir,” Shepherd said.

“Why would he go to the funeral?”

Hicks had anticipated that. “Because he’d been following me. He knew we were involved.”

“He took our photos,” Shepherd added.

“He wanted to know who we were,” Hicks explained.

Higgins held up his hands to stall the others from speaking. “So, he gets your registration. He tracks you down. He follows you. He takes you out. And then?”

“He took me to an empty lock-up. I don’t know where it was. He put me in the boot of the car when he let me out. He dumped me in the middle of nowhere.”

“What did he want?”

“Everything.”

“And?”

Hicks shrugged. He would not normally have wanted to rouse the old man’s anger, but now it was the only thing he wanted. Anger might mean that he believed what Hicks was saying. “I told him nothing, not at first. He worked me over; I kept my mouth shut. All I gave him was the usual: name, rank, number. He kept working me over, I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about, but he told me he knew I was lying. He had audio to prove it.”

“What?”

“Milton bugged my car.” Hicks reached into his pocket and took out the voice recorder that Milton had given him. It was a BlackRange unit, available on the Internet for a hundred pounds. It was the size of his index finger, was equipped with a strong magnet, and had a battery life of seven days. “It was underneath my seat,” he explained, using the line that Milton had prepared for him. “I found it when I got back to the car.”

Higgins put his head in his hands. “Jesus. How long had it been there?”

“He put it in sometime after the night we went after Fabian, I don’t know when exactly, but he played a recording of me on the phone to Shepherd talking about Isaacs after you and I met him. We spoke about the photos.”

He turned to Shepherd. “Did you?”

“We might have done. It’s not impossible.”

“Did you say where they were?”

“I think we did,” Shepherd said quietly and then, with more heat, “but it wouldn’t have mattered if this fucking amateur hadn’t allowed his car to be bugged!”

The general’s face had gradually turned a deep shade of mauve. His temper was never far from the surface, and it was close to overflowing now.

“So Milton knew about the vault?”

Hicks nodded.

“He did it?”

“He went back to Frankie Fabian and told him. Fabian put a team together. But Milton was involved.”

“
Fuck!
”

“Fabian has it all now. The evidence. He doesn’t care about his son. Maybe he takes out the pictures with Eddie. Maybe he doesn’t. He sees the bottom line: it’s a chance to make a big score. Milton says he’s going to blackmail Isaacs and the others.”

“Good luck to him,” Higgins said.

“What?”

“You see the news, Hicks?” Woodward said. “You can’t blackmail a dead man.”

Hicks understood what must have happened. The general was tidying up.

Higgins was still glaring at him. “What about the rest of the box?”

“Sir?”

“It wasn’t just the evidence. I had assets there. Money. A lot of it.”

Hicks nodded that he understood. Milton had explained that to him, too. There had been cash in Higgins’s box. Milton had opened the bag and showed him.

Higgins was still talking, saying that Woodward had money in the vault, too, but Hicks had temporarily zoned out. He swallowed hard on a dry throat. This was it. He had baited the hook as best he could. Everything depended on the hope that he had done enough. He had to pray that Higgins would bite.

“Hicks,” the general was saying. “
Hicks
, wake up.”

“I’m sorry. I’m full of Brufen. I feel a bit light-headed.”

“Why did Milton let you out?”

“He wants to talk to you. Fabian has everything in your box and all the other boxes they opened.”

Higgins got up and paced the room. He turned back, his face dark with anger. “He wants to
talk
?”

“He has a business proposal for you.”

“You’re kidding? He stole from me; now he wants to talk business?”

“I—”

There was a glass on the table. Higgins swiped out with his arm, grabbed the glass and flung it against the wall. It shattered just behind Gillan. The big man flinched from the shock of it, the shards of glass falling down onto his shoulders.