The Ninth Step - John Milton #8 (John Milton Thrillers) (32 page)

“I was.”

Higgins nodded. “What happened? Why did you leave?”

“A civil servant’s salary seemed a poor substitute for what I could make on the open market.”

“Really?”

“I think you know, sir. You’ve done something similar.”

They walked on for several steps without speaking.

Milton broke the silence. “You’ve been busy, General. You’ve started to clean up behind you.”

“You mean Isaacs? Yes, of course. That’s because of you, not that I’d expect you to care. You compromised everything. I didn’t have a choice. Leo Isaacs was a weak man. I’m not talking about his perversions, although those were bad enough. He wouldn’t have been the sort who would have been able to keep his mouth shut. It would have taken the police ten minutes to get the whole sorry story out of him. Best to make sure that didn’t happen.”

“The police think it was suicide?”

“Yes, that’s very straightforward. He’s been hounded by these unfortunate rumours for years. The pressure—I don’t know, it must all have gotten too much for him.”

“What about the others?”

“There was only one other. The rest died years ago. Isaacs and Harry Grainger were the only ones still alive.”

“And Grainger?”

“The same, I’m afraid. Heart attack. He lived alone. His cleaner does his house every Friday. She’ll find him then. Terrible shame.”

They walked on.

Higgins glanced at him. “Hicks says you have a business proposal for me?”

“I do. What do you care about, General?”

“My money.”

“I can get you a lot more than the money you lost.”

“But you want half of it.”

“I do.”

“You think that’s a little generous?”

Milton shrugged. “Half of what you could get is a lot more than what you had in that box. And you don’t get anything without me.”

“After you took it in the first place, Milton? You expect me to trust you?”

“Not really. But you’ll have to get used to the idea.”

A bus rumbled by in the outside lane, throwing a curtain of water over two tourists who were pausing to take a selfie with the Houses of Parliament in the background.

“If I said yes, what would it look like?”

Milton knew what he had to say. This was it: the sell. He would reinforce what Hicks had already said. “Frankie Fabian trusts me. He’s seen what I can do and he wants me to work with him on a permanent basis. I’ve said I’d think about it. I could tell him I wanted to see him to talk about it. I could tell you when the sit-down might take place. It would probably be at his house. I could tell you what his security disposition is like. How many guards he has, what they carry, how they patrol. It’s minimal. Nothing that would give you and your men any trouble.”

“And?”

“You go at it. Send your men—all they need to do is create a distraction. I go in, too. If Fabian has the money there, I’ll top him and bring it out. If he doesn’t, if he has it somewhere else, I’m betting you know how to get what you need out of him. And if you don’t, I do—but that would cost you another ten per cent.”

“Don’t worry, Milton, I won’t need any help for that.”

They were nearly at the end of the bridge now, the lights at the junction with the Strand glowing in the gloom.

“And if I said yes?” Higgins said.

“Then you wait for me to tell you when it’s going down. You do your part, I get your money, you give me half.”

“And if I say no?”

“I know you’re a dangerous man, Higgins. I know the men who work for you are dangerous, too. And I know that you’re not the sort to let bygones be bygones. I don’t know how it’ll end up. But I like peace of mind. So, if you turn me down, one way it might end up is that I go after all of you. And you know enough about me to know that that’s my special skill. I’ll go after you one by one until I feel safe again. I wouldn’t recommend calling my bluff, but that’s for you to decide.”

They reached a bus stop with a double-decker waiting to pull away.

“You’ve got my number,” Milton said. “Call me. If I don’t hear from you by this time tomorrow, I’ll take it that you’re not interested.”

Milton didn’t wait for Higgins to speak again. He hopped aboard the bus just before the doors hissed shut, pressed his prepaid card to the reader and then went to take a seat at the back. The bus edged away from the kerb before being caught in the traffic at the junction. Milton sat down and exhaled, the tension of what he had just done flowing out of him. He turned in his seat and looked back through the rear window. It was partially obscured by condensation, but there were patches that were clear and Milton could see Higgins standing on the pavement where Milton had left him, watching the bus as it rolled ahead, crossed the junction and carried him away.

MILTON STAYED in the Waterloo hotel room for most of the day. He watched the news, always nervous that details of the investigation into the robbery would be revealed. If the police announced that they had suspects under arrest after finding them in the vault, it would make his selling job on Higgins that much more difficult. There would be questions, then, that he would be unable to answer.

But the story passed down the running order with each successive bulletin. By five o’clock, it had been dropped altogether. There were no damaging revelations.

There was a branch of Ned’s Noodles opposite the hotel, and Milton went down to it for his dinner. He ordered udon noodles with chicken and yakisoba sauce. He was sitting at a window seat, gazing out into the dreary evening, and he found himself thinking of Olivia. He wasn’t responsible for her, and she was in the mess she was in because she had ignored his very clear advice. But that didn’t mean he was able to abandon her. If she was still alive, it was only because Fabian thought that she might prove to be useful leverage against Milton. The moment that calculation changed, she would serve no further purpose, and Milton was in no doubt that Fabian was not the sort of man to just let her go. He had demonstrated how ruthless he was with Eddie. She was worth nothing to him by comparison.

He was collecting a pair of plastic chopsticks when his burner phone rang.

It could only really be one of two people: Fabian or Higgins.

“Hello?” Milton said.

“Milton?”

“Yes.”

“It’s Higgins.”

Milton lodged his chopsticks in the mess of noodles and switched the phone to his right ear.

“And?”

“We’re in.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“How do we proceed?”

“I’ll need to make the arrangements.”

“What does that mean?”

“I told you. I need to set up a meeting with Fabian.”

“Where? His house?”

“Leave it to me. I’ll call you tomorrow. Be ready to move. We won’t have time to wait.”

MILTON WENT STRAIGHT to Covent Garden. Rules was on Maiden Lane and was, according to the sign outside, the oldest restaurant in London. Milton glanced in through the window and saw Frankie Fabian sitting in a booth at the back of the room. He went to the door, pushed it open and went inside.

“Good evening, sir,” the maître d’ said.

“I’m here to see a gentleman. He’s inside.”

The woman smiled and gestured that he should go through into the dining room.

Milton did as she suggested. The room was old fashioned, with lots of wood and a gloomy, slightly stultifying atmosphere. It was quiet, too, with just a handful of diners, the only sounds the low murmur of conversation and the chink of cutlery ringing against china. Milton glanced back at Fabian’s table. He was dining alone, a bowl of soup set out before him. Two large men were sat in the booth next to him, neither of them much interested in the meals before them. Milton could identify bodyguards when he saw them. They were muscle, there to make sure that the meeting passed off without incident. Milton felt comfortable enough. Nothing would go down in a public place like this.

Milton approached Fabian’s booth and sat down opposite him.

“Mr. Smith.” Fabian laid his spoon down and stared at Milton. His expression was eloquent, and Milton was left in no doubt as to what he would like to do to him if he was given the chance. “Thank you for seeing me.”

“Shall we get something straight, right away?” Milton said. “You’re wasting your time with the reporter. She doesn’t mean anything to me.”

Fabian smiled. “You would say that, but I don’t believe you. Let’s not start off on the wrong foot again. I’m going to send the young lady back to London. I want her to write the story.”

“Which one?”

He smiled at that. “The one about Isaacs. I want that to be published. You might not believe me, but I loved Eddie. And those perverts deserve to be punished.”

“And the other story? About the robbery?”

“That’s what I’d like to talk to you about.”

Milton shook his head. “I can’t help you. I’m sorry if you came here on false pretences, but it’s not up for discussion. Neither of them are. They both have to be written. It’s what Eddie wanted.”

“How do you know what he wanted?”

“Because he told me. He wanted to make things right. The things he’d done and the things that were done to him. He wanted to get justice and dispense justice. And I’m going to make sure that happens.”

“Eddie’s dead. Maybe you should think about what his father wants.”

“I don’t think you have a right to speak on his behalf.”

“And I don’t—”

Milton interrupted him. “Enough. Stop. I know what you did. I knew the first time we met. You murdered him.”

Frankie Fabian was an excellent actor, his poker face honed through interviews with hostile police and during three criminal trials, but Milton’s mild threat generated a flicker of discomfort that passed quickly across his face. “You know Eddie was adopted?”

“Yes. He told me.”

“I didn’t want him originally. Funny, the way things play out. It was my wife. She’s a soft touch. Always has been, bless her. She wanted to adopt a child who needed a family. A hard-luck case. I couldn’t care less about charity, but I let her do it. And that was Edward. He was a lovely boy. Sweet as you like. Had his problems, but he’d been moved around from pillar to post, so we put it down to that. Who wouldn’t have had problems with that kind of history?”

Milton didn’t react and waited until Fabian continued.

“Treated him like my own flesh and blood. Got him involved in the family business. But his problems got worse. He had no stomach for it. I tried, but it made no difference. I think I knew something had happened to him before we adopted him. Something in the homes. Something made him the way he was.”

“The way he was?”

“My boys would say that he was a faggot, but I didn’t care about that. My old man’s father was gay. Built my family into what it is today. Couldn’t give a shit. No, I mean it was the way he was wired. This guilt he had. The way he couldn’t be happy with anything. The way he couldn’t take the things I gave him and be grateful for them.” Fabian shook his head sadly. “I don’t care whether you believe me or not, but I loved him. Despite everything, all the trouble he gave us, I loved him.”

“Even when he threatened to go to the police about the guard who got shot?”

“He said he couldn’t stand the guilt about what happened.” Frankie shook his head, and Milton thought he looked almost sad. “Couldn’t stand the guilt. Ridiculous. He said it’d been eating him up. It’s the most pathetic thing I ever heard. The bloke had it coming to him. You see a man waving a shotgun at you, what do you do? You do what you’re told. He didn’t, he was stupid, he got shot. End of story. But Eddie couldn’t get over it. Just couldn’t. He said it was his fault. Started drinking, said the only way he could live with himself was when he was too pissed to remember what had happened. I couldn’t get it into his thick head that he was overreacting. And the drinking just made it worse.”

“So you killed him.”

He took his glass and sipped from it. “That’s right,” he said diffidently.

There was no sadness there, not now. The melancholy had gone as soon as it had appeared. He glared at Milton. There was defiance and anger. It was what Milton had expected to see. It was what he had
needed
to see to decide, once and for all, that the course of action he had set in play was the right thing to do. Coming here had been a chance for Frankie Fabian to argue for his right to continue to draw breath. His arguments had been selfish. They had utterly failed. If he had known the danger he was in, perhaps he would have behaved differently.

Milton had heard all he needed to hear. “Thank you,” he said, and started to rise.

Fabian carried on. “One thing about me you need to know. Family is the most important thing in my life.”

Milton paused.

“I’d do anything for my boys. Anything. I gave Eddie a life he never would’ve had otherwise. Money. Lifestyle. Choices. He couldn’t accept any of it. He was too fucked up. Too broken. They did that to him. Those men in the photographs. I tried and tried, but none of it did any good. And in the end I didn’t have a choice.”

Milton listened to it all—the attempt to justify what he had done—and fixed him throughout with a steely, icy gaze. He knew the effect that his cold and emotionless eyes could have on a person; he had seen it hundreds of times before.

Milton sat down again. “Does it feel better to get that off your chest?”

Fabian looked rattled at Milton’s complete lack of a reaction. He glanced over at the muscle on the other table. The men started to rise.

“Do I look like a priest?” Milton asked. “Did you think I was here to take your confession?”

“What, then? Why are you here?”

“Because I wanted to tell you what’s going to happen next. I’m not negotiating with you. I’m
telling
you. And I want you to know why.”

He jutted out his chin a little. “And what’s that?”

“I’m going to kill you, Frankie.”

Milton watched his face, the infusion of blood in his cheeks, the way his brow lowered just a fraction, the stiffening of his jawline. Milton could see that his words had had the desired effect. Fabian’s larynx jerked involuntarily and a tiny muscle in his cheek twitched once and then a second time. His hand scurried back across the table to the place setting and his fingers traced over the knife that had been left there. Fabian was a hard man, but he was worldly enough to know when he was looking into the eyes of a predator. Fabian was frightened.