Running Scared, page 28
‘Mate, someone’s coming,’ Wes said quietly, touching Adam’s shoulder.
Turning his head and seeing a couple staggering in their direction from the far end of the road, Adam hissed, ‘Get the doors open and let’s get out of here.’
Too shocked by what she’d heard to resist when Adam grabbed one of her arms and his mate grabbed the other and threw her in through the open side-door of the van, Lexi cried out when her head smashed against the corner of a metal toolbox before the door was slammed shut and darkness descended.
45
After a day spent in front of Lee’s TV, listening as his dad and his buddy indulged in another nostalgia trip while getting high, Ryan’s nerves were jangling when his dad’s phone started ringing. Seeing Lexi’s name on the screen – or, rather, Lady Alexis, which was how Theo had saved it – he leaned forward and snatched it up off the coffee table.
‘Lexi? Are you OK?’ he asked when he answered it. ‘I’ve been trying to call you for—’
‘Hello, son,’ an all-too familiar voice drawled into his ear. ‘You’ve got some explaining to do, you thieving little fucker.’
‘Who dat?’ Theo asked from the other side of the room.
Shushing him with a wave of his hand, Ryan said, ‘Where’s Lexi? If you’ve hurt her, I’ll—’
‘You’ll what?’ spat Danny. ‘Pull your Superman cape on and fly to her rescue? Too late, dick-face.’
‘What d’you mean, too late?’ Ryan asked, the blood draining from his face. ‘Where is she? What have you done with her?’
‘I ain’t killed her, if that’s what you’re whingeing about,’ Danny sneered. ‘But I will if I don’t get my money back – and that’s a promise you can bank with interest, son. Now be a good boy and put your father on the line.’
Turning to Theo, Ryan put his hand over the phone, and said, ‘It’s Danny. They’ve got Lexi and he wants to talk to you.’
Sobering up faster than Ryan had ever seen anyone sober up before, Theo got up and snatched the phone out of his hand.
‘What’ve you done to my girl, Danny? ’Cos I swear to God I’ll finish this once and for all if you’ve touched one hair on her head.’
‘Oh, that’s right, Adam said she’d told him it was you she was seeing, not Ryan,’ Danny laughed nastily. ‘That’s just gonna make it all the sweeter when I do what I’ve got to do. But tell me, Theo, how did it feel to know you were dipping your wick in your son’s sloppy seconds?’
‘Don’t fuck with me, Danny,’ Theo warned, the suppressed rage in his voice sending a shiver down Ryan’s spine. ‘And leave my boy out of this. You fuckin’ owe me.’
‘The way I see it, you’re the one who’s sitting on my cash and gear, so I think you’ll find it’s the other way round.’
‘I served fourteen years because of you, and you’d better believe I’ll happily see out the rest of my life behind bars if anything happens to Alexis. Only this time I will be guilty.’
‘Yeah, yeah, yadda, yadda,’ Danny drawled. ‘You fuckin’ deserved everything you got, and you know it, so quit with the threats and remember that none of this would’ve happened if you hadn’t fucked my girl and tried to run me off the estate.’
‘Ain’t my fault your girl was beggin’ for it,’ Theo shot back. ‘If you’d been man enough to keep her satisfied, she wouldn’t have come sniffing round the brothers.’
‘Dad, shut it!’ Ryan hissed. ‘You’re just winding him up.’
‘Better listen to your little lapdog,’ Danny jeered. ‘He might not have your brawn, but he’s sure as hell got the brains you missed out on. Subject of, put him back on.’
‘You and me ain’t done by a long shot,’ Theo hissed. ‘See when I get my hands on you—’
Snatching the phone out of his hand before he could finish his sentence, Ryan said, ‘Just tell us what you want, Danny.’
‘You know what I want,’ Danny replied icily. ‘And you know where I’ll be when you fetch it. And make sure you’ve got every last penny and every last grain of snow you stole from me, or she’ll be getting the first bullet, and you’ll be watching.’
‘Fuck!’ Ryan yelled, hurling the phone down on the couch when the line went dead. ‘We’ve gotta take it back.’
‘Over my dead fuckin’ body!’ Theo argued. ‘That cunt owes me for fourteen fucking years of my life.’
‘He’s got Lexi,’ Ryan reminded him. ‘He’ll kill her.’
‘Then I’ll kill him,’ said Theo. ‘And he still ain’t getting the money.’
‘I thought you were supposed to love her?’ Ryan said accusingly.
‘Man, we’re sitting on nearly two mill,’ Theo fired back. ‘And she ain’t interested in me, so—’
‘So you’d let her die?’ Ryan cut in angrily. ‘That’s fuckin’ sick!’
‘Guys, guys, chill out,’ Lee interjected, getting up and pushing them apart. ‘Youse are reacting instead of acting, and you need to cool it and start thinking how to get around this.’
‘You don’t know Danny like I do,’ Ryan said, raking his fingers through his hair as he paced the floor. ‘He’s already got Lexi, and as soon as we show up, we’re all dead.’
‘Not necessarily,’ countered Lee. ‘And you’re forgetting we knew Danny back in the day, young blud, so we seen how he operated from time. Done the right way, we can take this fucker down so he never gets back up.’
‘I’m pretty sure he’s changed his methods since you two ran in those circles,’ Ryan argued. ‘He’s got a twenty-strong crew, and a ton of street kids who think he’s some kind of god ’cos he gives them the opportunity to earn a few quid. How the fuck are we supposed to take him on with those odds stacked against us?’
‘Stealth,’ said Lee. ‘And who says there’s only three of us? Me and T have got nuff brothers who’ll step up for us if we give the word.’
‘So, what you saying?’ Ryan asked. ‘We get a crew together and go in there all guns blazing. Because you do know that’s how it’ll end up, don’t you? A gunfight bloodbath.’
‘Let’s sit down and talk this through calmly,’ Lee said, heading back to his chair. ‘I’ll make some calls and call some trusted brothers over, then we’ll make our move.’
46
Lexi had been knocked unconscious after hitting her head on the toolbox in the van. Awake now, and terrified to find herself tied to a chair in what appeared to be a damp, dimly lit cellar, she blinked to clear her vision as she looked around. She could hear faint music coming from up above, and there were shapes in the corner which she recognized from her mum’s time in the pub as beer barrels and stacked crates containing bottles. There didn’t seem to be anybody in there with her, so she strained against the cable ties that were binding her wrists together behind her back and her ankles to the chair legs, trying her hardest to snap them. Giving up when she felt the plastic digging into her flesh and getting tighter, she used her tongue to try and dislodge the thick tape covering her mouth, but all she got for her trouble was the sickening taste of glue. Next, she started rocking the chair, figuring that if she could tip it over and get the feet off the floor, she could try to slide the cable ties down and free her legs. But she hadn’t managed to make it topple when a door opened, spilling light down a flight of stairs in the right corner of the room.
‘Awake, are we?’ Danny asked, smiling at her when he’d trotted down with Adam and two huge men behind him. ‘Let me guess . . .’ he went on, walking behind her and leaning down to examine the cable ties. ‘You’ve been trying to snap them, but all you’ve done is nearly cut your wrists? That was a bit silly, wasn’t it?’
Unnerved by his genial tone as he got up and walked round to the front again, Lexi eyed him warily when he squatted down and rested his arms on her lap.
‘I remember you when you were a girl,’ he said. ‘You were a pretty little thing, but you’ve grown into a real beauty, haven’t you? No wonder you’ve got all the men acting loopy over you. Even my boy here.’ He jerked his head back at Adam. ‘I hear he’s been sending you flowers and trying to get you to talk to him, but you wouldn’t give him the time of day. Shame, that. He could use a nice girl like you to get him on the straight and narrow.’
Barely able to breathe as her heart pounded in her chest, Lexi forced herself to hold his gaze. She hadn’t seen much of him when she and Nicole were friends, but he’d always been nice to her on the few occasions their paths had crossed, and he still had the same twinkle in his eyes that had made her envy Nicole for having him as a dad back then. She was only glad that his bitch wife and daughter weren’t here, because she was sure she wouldn’t still be in one piece. But she had no idea what he planned for her, so it was still a possibility.
‘Your men are on their way,’ Danny told her now, pulling up another chair and sitting in front of her before lighting a cigarette. ‘Shouldn’t be too long, so try to relax, eh?’
Unable to speak with the tape over her mouth, Lexi stared at him; pleading with her eyes for him to let her go.
47
Tina Klein had already been ill, but after Adam had turned up and subjected her to several hours of violent sex – all from behind so he didn’t have to see her face or risk catching whatever she had – she’d been in agony. The pain in her backside was excruciating, her stomach felt like it was filled with acid that was burning her alive from the inside out, and her head was pounding worse than any migraine she had ever experienced in her life before. Terrified when she tried to get up in the middle of the night and found she couldn’t move her legs, she screamed out in pain as she rolled over and groped for her phone on the bedside table. With Caleb sleeping in the next room, she couldn’t ring an ambulance, so, instead, she rang his father, Patrick.
It took three attempts before he answered, and he sounded as angry as he always did when she called him out of the blue.
‘Why are you ringing at this time of the night? You know I’ve got work in the morning.’
‘Help me, Pat,’ she sobbed. ‘I – I think I’m dying.’
‘Yeah, whatever,’ he scoffed. ‘Been on the booze again, have ya? Well, serves you fuckin’ ri—’
‘Pat, I’m bleeding,’ she cried. ‘And C-Caleb’s sleeping so I can’t . . . I can’t get an ambulance. Please, Pat, I need you.’
‘Tina, what’s going on?’ Patrick asked, concerned now. ‘Where are you?’
‘At home,’ she said, her voice weakening. ‘But I don’t think I . . .’
‘Tina?’ Patrick said when she tailed off. ‘TINA?’
Jumping out of bed, Patrick Kelly grabbed his jeans off the chair and yanked them on.
‘What’s going on?’ his girlfriend, Fran, gazed blearily up at him over the duvet. ‘Was that Tina on the phone? Is something wrong?’
‘I think she’s in some kind of trouble,’ Patrick said, yanking his T-shirt over his head. ‘I need to go round there. She sounded bad, babe; like really bad. Reckons she’s bleeding, and my boy’s in bed. And then she just stopped talking.’
‘I’ll drive you,’ Fran said, getting up and reaching for her own jeans.
‘Thanks, babe,’ he said gratefully as he shoved his feet into his trainers and set off down the stairs.
When Fran pulled up outside Tina’s house fifteen minutes later, Patrick leapt out of the car and banged on the front door with his fist. Getting no answer after several attempts, he stepped back and yelled her name.
‘Is that Caleb?’ Fran asked, nodding to one of the bedroom windows, where a small face was just about visible behind the net curtain.
‘Stand back,’ Patrick said, moving her out of the way before taking a run at the door and smashing into it with his shoulder.
Running inside when the door flew open, he tore up the stairs, yelling, ‘Tina . . . are you up there?’
The door of the house next door opened, and a woman peeped out. ‘What’s all the noise?’ she asked, giving Fran a suspicious look.
‘I’m not sure,’ Fran said. ‘We think Tina might be ill.’
‘Maybe she wants to stop going out at all hours and leaving that kiddie on his own,’ the woman sniped. ‘And as for them men she’s been fetching home, she ought to be ashamed of herself. Had me awake for hours the other night, the racket she was making.’
Fran had only met Tina a couple of times, but she definitely hadn’t struck her as the kind of woman her neighbour was making her out to be. Leaving the self-righteous bitch muttering to herself on the step, she walked inside Tina’s house and pushed the splintered door shut.
‘Fran, call an ambulance!’ Patrick yelled.
Pulling her phone out of her pocket, Fran ran up the stairs. Stopping at the top when she saw a small boy rubbing his eyes in the doorway of the room next to the one in which she could hear Patrick trying to rouse his ex, she smiled, and said, ‘Hello, lovely. You must be Caleb. Shall we get you back to bed?’
‘Have you called them?’ Patrick yelled, twisting his head as she passed the door.
‘Just give me a second to put your boy to bed,’ she hissed.
‘Oh fuck, come on, Tina,’ Patrick said, putting his ear to his ex’s mouth before touching her throat to feel for a pulse.
‘Ambulance,’ Fran said, speaking into the phone as she came into the room behind him. Looking at Tina on the bed, her face deathly white, blood all over the sheet, she said, ‘I don’t know . . . Is she breathing, Pat?’
‘I think so,’ he said. ‘But it’s really shallow, like, so tell ’em to hurry.’
‘My boyfriend says she is breathing,’ Fran told the operator. ‘But there’s a lot of blood, so please send someone fast. No, I have no idea what’s happened. She rang and said she needed help, so we came as fast as we could.’
‘Adam . . .’
‘What?’ Patrick leaned his ear closer to Tina’s mouth when she spoke. ‘What did you say, love?’
‘Adam,’ she repeated, her voice little more than a whisper. ‘He said he killed a woman . . . and . . .’
‘And what?’ Patrick pressed when her voice faded. ‘Tina? And what?’
‘He said he’ll kill me and Caleb if I tell,’ she croaked. ‘And he . . .’
Her voice faded again, and Fran said, ‘I’m sure she said he raped her.’
48
Amy Benson was sleeping when her mobile started ringing on the bedside table. Groping for it, she pulled it under the duvet.
‘DI Benson.’
Eyes snapping open when she heard what the caller was saying, she sat up and shoved the quilt off her legs.
‘Which hospital? I’m on my way.’
The duty doctor had just come out of Tina Klein’s cubicle when Benson arrived at the A & E department of Wythenshawe hospital half an hour later.
‘How is she?’ she asked, after introducing herself.
‘Not good,’ he said quietly, ushering her to an office out of earshot of the cubicles. ‘We’re taking her into theatre as soon as the surgeon and anaesthesiologist get here. From my preliminary examination it appears she has sepsis as a result of a torn rectum, and possible internal damage.’
‘Sexual assault?’
‘I certainly wouldn’t imagine it could have been consensual, given the size of the wound. She’d have been in considerable pain.’
‘Is she conscious?’
‘In and out.’
‘Can I speak with her?’
‘You can try, but keep it brief. Her partner’s in the family room if you’d also like to speak to him. I believe he’s the one who found her.’
Nodding, Benson gestured to the uniform who had met her outside, and they both followed the doctor into the cubicle. In the bed, covered in wires and attached to various monitors and drips, Tina Klein looked – and smelled – like death. She had looked unwell when Benson had called round at her house earlier that day, at which time she had verified Adam Harvey’s claim that he had been with her at the time of the murder. She’d said she had been trying to get an appointment with her GP to see if he could give her some antibiotics, but the sepsis must already have begun to take hold by then to cause such a rapid deterioration.
‘Tina?’ she said quietly, perching on a chair beside the bed. ‘It’s Detective Inspector Benson. We spoke earlier. Can you hear me?’
Tina made a noise and her eyes flickered open.
‘Adam,’ she whispered. ‘He wasn’t . . . with me. He murder . . .’
‘Are you saying Adam Harvey wasn’t with you at the time I asked you about earlier?’
Tina gave the tiniest of nods, then added, ‘He gave me . . . money . . . Said he kill . . . me and Caleb. Hurt me . . .’
‘Did he do this to you?’ Benson asked, glancing up at the uniformed officer who had just entered the cubicle.
Tina gave another tiny nod.
‘Did he tell you he murdered someone?’ Benson pressed.
‘Yes.’
‘And he gave you money to provide him with an alibi?’
Nod.
‘And he also threatened to kill you and your son if you told anyone?’
Another nod, and then Tina’s eyes closed and her head drooped to one side.
Jumping up when an alarm rang out and medical staff rushed in, Benson left the cubicle.
‘Did you catch all that?’ she asked the uniform.
‘I did, ma’am,’ he confirmed.
‘I need to speak to her partner,’ she said, heading for the family room.
A worried-looking man was sitting in the otherwise empty room; his elbows on his jiggling knees, his head in his hands.
‘Are you Tina Klein’s partner?’ Benson asked.
‘Yeah.’ He looked up. ‘Well, ex, actually. We split up last year.’
She showed him her badge and introduced herself, then asked, ‘Could I take your name?’
‘Patrick Kelly.’
Sitting beside him while the uniformed copper stood guard by the door, Benson said, ‘I spoke to Ms Klein earlier in relation to a murder I’m investigating. Did she mention it to you?’
