Traitor in the House Read online

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Shit!’ JB hissed, in a rare display of frustration. He often appeared angry, but this was something else and Joey wondered whether he felt the net was closing in. ‘You know if that falls into the wrong hands, you are implicated too?’

  ‘I’ll find it. Just give me time.’

  ‘Time is something we don’t have the luxury of,’ he snapped. ‘Speaking of which, it’s time to dump the last one.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Joey asked. ‘It’s not quite been two weeks yet.’

  ‘I think it’s time to put an end to this. The press have got a right hard-on for this so-called Liverpool Ripper. Besides, I don’t think she’s going to talk, do you?’

  ‘No,’ Joey said solemnly. ‘I’ve tried every tactic I know of, and she hasn’t said anything about the memory card. She talked a lot about Melanie, and Simon Jones, but nothing about the card. I don’t think she knows where it is. I think Jones has played us like a fiddle, Boss. If you want my opinion, he’s got it.’

  JB turned to him and scowled. ‘No, Joseph! He’s played you like a fucking fiddle! So, you’d better bloody find him then, hadn’t you?’ He stood up then and called Archie, who came bounding over with his ball in his mouth. ‘Don’t forget to leave the evidence with her. I think it’s about time The Liverpool Ripper was brought to justice.’

  ‘I’ll dump her later. It’s a shame though. I was having fun with her.’

  JB’s eyes lit up then. He couldn’t help himself. ‘Is she a screamer?’

  ‘No, not this one. She’s quiet. She cries a lot and asks me to let her go. I can’t stand the screamers myself. Give me a headache.’

  ‘Well, there are always ways of shutting them up when they become too annoying.’ JB chuckled to himself. ‘I’m sorry I’ve missed all the fun,’ he said wistfully.

  ‘I’ll tell you all about it some time,’ Joey said.

  As though he suddenly remembered where he was and who he was talking to, JB stiffened. He bent to put Archie’s lead on and walked away without another word.

  Joey sat back against the bench. He was disappointed to see that the two teenage girls had left while he’d been talking to JB, especially now that he was being forced to give up his latest plaything. He had thought he’d be keeping Anna, the fourth Ripper victim, for another week in the basement of the old farmhouse in Scarisbrick. He did enjoy playing with her. But now he would have to refrain from doing anything that might leave his DNA on or inside her. Instead, she would be cleaned up and then killed quickly. He couldn’t even take any enjoyment in prolonging her death. If JB wanted her dumped tonight, then that’s what needed to happen. He sighed. Life was a bitch!

  This time the body wouldn’t be entirely clean though. He would plant the DNA of their chosen fall guy on her body and sit back and watch as the police arrested the poor sod. Joey stood up and stretched his legs. At least he had the kidnap and murder of Jake and Connor to look forward to. He had a good group of hard lads together who were more than willing to do those two in, and his boss would make sure that Joey and his firm were untouchable. Joey smiled to himself. He had a very powerful friend in a very high place and he couldn’t wait to take his rightful standing in the hierarchy of the Liverpool underworld again.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Grace was walking to her car after finishing work for the day when she felt someone fall into step beside her. She turned to see Leigh Moss had joined her.

  ‘Afternoon, Detective. To what do I owe this pleasure?’ she asked. ‘You do realise it’s broad daylight and anyone could see us?’

  ‘We’re just two people walking next to each other.’ Leigh shrugged. ‘I wanted to ask you something.’

  ‘Something about the case?’ Grace said as she reached her car.

  ‘Yes,’ Leigh said.

  Both women stopped and Grace opened the door to her car. ‘Then get in, Leigh. I don’t want to be seen talking to you in the middle of the city centre.’

  Leigh rolled her eyes. ‘Fine,’ she said.

  Grace hadn’t even pulled away from the kerb when Leigh spoke.

  ‘Is this better?’ she asked.

  ‘Much,’ Grace replied. ‘I’m not sure why you’re suddenly so at ease with being seen with me, but I’d rather not be seen talking to you out in the open. No offence.’

  ‘None taken. I was in town and I thought I’d swing by to see you in your office, but then I saw you leaving.’

  ‘What did you want to talk to me about?’ Grace asked. Leigh’s growing familiarity was disconcerting. She liked Leigh, despite who she was, but they were from different worlds. It was one thing to have the odd drink in secret when necessary, but Leigh was becoming almost friendly. Grace wondered if it had anything to do with Leigh’s blossoming relationship with John.

  ‘I went along with one of my Detective Constables to speak to Stuart Halligan today.’

  ‘How did that go?’ Grace asked.

  ‘He continued to deny being a friend of Nerys’s even when I told him a source had told me otherwise. He claims they are mistaken.’

  ‘Perhaps she was?’ Grace replied, thinking back to her conversation with Stacey a few days earlier.

  ‘The thing is, I didn’t believe him,’ Leigh said.

  ‘Why?’ Grace asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Call it intuition. He seemed scared…’

  ‘Well, he was being interviewed by you and your colleague. Isn’t that normal?’

  ‘Nervous maybe, but not scared. Not like that. I think he was hiding something.’

  ‘Do you think he’s the killer?’ Grace asked as she pulled the car over into a quiet car park. She turned in her seat.

  Leigh shook her head. ‘No. He’s short. Very slender. Small hands,’

  ‘Not capable of strangling someone to death then?’ Grace said.

  ‘I wouldn’t think so. And he has a solid alibi. And while I was there I notice a framed photograph on his mantelpiece. It was the only photo on display. It was a picture of a couple in their thirties – and their little girl. I asked him who they were and he said it was his aunt and her husband and their daughter Daisy. When I asked how old Daisy was he turned as white as a sheet. She’s five, by the way.’

  ‘The same age that Nerys’s daughter would be? You think Stuart has something to do with her child then?’

  ‘Maybe? If she was still at Sunnymeade when she got pregnant, maybe Stuart helped her to cover it up? Maybe he is the father? We spoke to Vince Collins as soon as we identified the tooth as belonging to Nerys’s child, and he denied any knowledge of her having one. Of course, he could be lying.’

  ‘Perhaps the child was his?’ Grace suggested.

  ‘No. He couldn’t have children of his own. The doctors confirmed that at the trial.’

  ‘So you think the child in the photograph might actually be Nerys’s daughter? That’s some leap, Leigh.’

  ‘You didn’t see the look on his face. He is definitely hiding something, and his reaction when I asked about the child makes me think she has something to do with it.’

  ‘But how would they ever cover something like that up? Nerys has a child and she’s being raised by Stuart’s aunt as her own?’

  ‘Birth certificates are easy enough to forge if you know the right people. You know that.’

  ‘Yes, certificates are, but not official records. This couple would have had to have the child from birth and passed her off as their own.’

  ‘It’s improbable, I know, but not impossible.’

  ‘True,’ Grace agreed. ‘And it’s certainly a much better explanation for Nerys’s child than the alternatives that have been running through my brain,’ she said with a shudder. ‘But if that was the case, why not just make the couple the child’s legal guardians? Surely there were easier ways than to pass the child off as their own?’

  ‘There are…’

  ‘So, if your theory is true, Nerys and Stuart have has gone to great lengths to cover this child up?’ G
race added.

  ‘Exactly, and I could be putting her in danger,’ Leigh said as she leaned her head back and sighed.

  ‘Can’t you just check Daisy’s DNA?’ Grace asked, remembering how easy it had been to prove that Jake was Isla’s father a year earlier.

  ‘It’s not that easy. I have no reason, other than a gut feeling, which could well be wrong, that Daisy might be Nerys’s child. I can’t just walk into a family and ask for a child’s DNA without evidence to back up my theory. Stuart has an alibi. I have nothing other than the word of your source that he and Nerys were even friends. There is no reason to suspect him other than he happened to be at Sunnymeade at the same time as our victims – which is true of many people. I have no cause to request a DNA sample.’

  Grace looked at Leigh. ‘Your processes are so restrictive.’

  ‘They’re there for a reason though. And they have to be followed.’

  ‘How annoying! If you just had the child’s DNA.’

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ Leigh said. ‘If we obtained it illegally then we couldn’t use it at all and it would completely undermine the investigation.’

  Grace held her hands up in defence and laughed. ‘I wasn’t suggesting anything.’

  Leigh laughed too. ‘Sorry,’ she said as she rubbed the bridge of her nose.

  ‘So, if your theory is right, why have Nerys and Stuart gone to such lengths to hide Daisy’s identity? If Stuart is her father and Nerys her mother, there would be no reason to, surely?’

  ‘I know. It wouldn’t make sense,’ Leigh agreed.

  ‘So, if Stuart isn’t her father, and Collins isn’t, who is?’ Grace asked as her head started to throb. It seemed like the more they found out about this case, the less they knew.

  ‘Someone that Nerys and Stuart were afraid of? Someone they never wanted to find out he had a daughter?’

  ‘Joey Parnell?’ Grace asked. ‘He likes young girls, doesn’t he?’

  ‘It crossed my mind, but we ran the DNA from the tooth through our database and it doesn’t match Joey’s DNA, or anyone else’s on there.’

  ‘This case gets stranger every day, Leigh,’ Grace said.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Leigh said with a sigh.

  Grace started the engine of her car and pulled out of the car park. She wanted to get home to her own children.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Jake sat in the back of the transit van and looked across at Connor sitting on the wooden bench opposite. Connor was looking down at the crowbar he was turning over in his hands. Jake felt a pang of sadness as he wondered if Connor was thinking about the same thing he was. The anniversary of the death of Connor’s twin, Paul, was approaching and his absence was even more noticeable than usual, especially on nights such as these when Paul would have been right up for it and in the thick of the action.

  ‘He’d love this, wouldn’t he?’ Jake said.

  Connor looked up and smiled. ‘Yeah, he would.’

  As well as Jake, Connor and the driver, there were another three of their best men in the vehicle. Two more vans followed behind them, containing another twelve of their toughest bouncers. A similar convoy led by Luke and Danny was also on the road, heading out of the city towards Southport. It was finally time to take down Parnell and his new firm, and to do that they would take out his two most lucrative contracts – a nightclub in Southport and a pub on the outskirts of the city centre. Jake and Connor didn’t usually get overly involved in the operational side of Cartel Securities, since they had plenty of other business to keep them occupied, but Danny and Luke had told them about their plan and they had been happy to help. Danny and Luke were determined to prove themselves capable of running Cartel Securities and taking out any potential competition.

  The strikes would be co-ordinated so they would both happen at midnight. That would ensure that no warning could be given about an impending attack from one venue to the other.

  ‘We’re nearly there, Boss,’ Timmo, the driver, shouted.

  Jake looked at his watch. It was five to midnight. ‘Drive around for a few minutes and pull up outside at twelve.’

  ‘Will do,’ Timmo shouted back.

  Jake looked around the van at the other lads, all tooled up and sitting quietly.

  ‘Remember the plan. Take the bouncers out. No one else gets hurt. The last thing we need is the bizzies on our case.’

  The men all nodded and he heard mumbles of assent.

  ‘You ready for this, Con?’ Jake asked Connor as he patted his knee.

  Connor looked up and him and grinned. ‘Fuck, yes! I’ve been feeling like knocking someone out all week.’

  When the three vans pulled up outside Singleton’s pub a few minutes later, Jake, Connor and the rest of the lads were primed and ready. The three van doors were slid open almost simultaneously and eighteen men dressed in black and armed with a variety of weapons jumped out. The bouncers at Singleton’s barely knew what had hit them. They were outmanned two to one and the whole thing was over in less than ten minutes. Parnell’s men knew they were beaten and the ones who could still do so walked out of there. The two men who had been knocked unconscious were carried by their mates. While their own men held the door, Jake and Connor walked through the club, reassuring the customers who were sober enough to realise something was going on that everything was under control. ‘Where is the manager?’ Jake asked one of the bar staff.

  ‘In the back,’ he said as he eyed them warily.

  They walked into the back stock room and found the manager with his hand up a woman’s skirt and his tongue down her throat.

  ‘Are you responsible for this place?’ Connor barked.

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’ the man snapped as he looked up and saw them walking towards him.

  ‘There’s been a change of personnel,’ Jake said with a smile.

  ‘We’ll be handling your security from now on,’ Connor added as he took a Cartel Securities business card from his pocket and handed it to the man, who stood there staring at the pair of them.

  ‘What happened to our usual security?’ he asked.

  ‘We’ve relieved them of their duties. And let’s face it, they weren’t very good, were they, if they let us walk back here to find you feeling up one of your customers?’ Jake said.

  He shrugged and turned to face them, pulling up his zipper as he did. ‘You’ll have to square it with the owner.’

  Jake shook his head and looked at Connor who rolled his eyes.

  Jake walked over to him and jabbed his finger into the man’s chest. ‘No, you will square this with the owner, because you were too busy trying to get your end away while sixteen of my men walked in here and took over this place. And you didn’t have a fucking clue about any of it until we walked in here. If I was the owner, I’d be letting you go and all. But you can tell him he’s getting a better service for the same price, so it’s a win-win for him. We don’t even mind if you want to tell him you approached us and did him a favour.’

  The manager nodded, as though he’d suddenly realised who he was dealing with.

  ‘Nice doing business with you,’ Jake said and then he and Connor turned around and left Singleton’s manager standing with his mouth hanging open.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  ‘I think we can call that a huge success, lads?’ Jake said with a grin on his face as he poured four large measures of Johnny Walker Black Label. Danny and Luke’s takeover of the nightclub in Southport had been as successful as Jake and Connor’s enterprise at Singleton’s.

  ‘Indeed we can,’ Danny said as Luke and Connor nodded their agreement.

  The four men each took a glass of whisky and toasted their victory.

  Connor downed his whisky in one gulp and set his glass on the table with a satisfied sigh. ‘It’s been epic, lads, but I need to get home to the missus and the baby.’

  Luke placed his now empty glass on the table too and patted Connor on the back. ‘I’ll come with you.’

/>   ‘You and all?’ Jake said with a shake of his head. ‘Just where do you need to be that’s better than here with your best mates?’

  Luke flashed his eyebrows. ‘Hot date,’ he said.

  ‘It’s almost 2 a.m.,’ Danny said as he glanced at his new Breitling.

  ‘What can I say,’ Luke said as he held out his hands. ‘I’m worth waiting up for.’

  ‘See you clowns tomorrow then,’ Jake replied as he downed the last remnants of his own drink.

  Jake watched as Connor and Luke left his office, closing the door behind them.

  ‘You’re not buggering off as well, are you?’ he asked Danny.

  ‘Nope. I can go all night,’ he said with a grin.

  ‘Fancy another?’ Jake indicated the open bottle of Scotch on his desk.

  ‘Yeah, thanks,’ Danny replied as he walked over and sat on the edge of the desk.

  Jake poured each of them another generous measure of whisky and handed the glass to Danny, who took it with a nod of thanks.

  ‘The night’s still young, mate. You up for going somewhere a bit more interesting?’ Jake asked, thinking he would introduce Danny to the private Xcalibur club – the place he and Connor frequented when they wanted to have a drink without being disturbed.

  ‘Yeah.’ Danny took a sip of his Scotch. ‘Or we could just go to your place? I’m up for anything you want,’ he said, his voice low and gravelly. He downed the rest of his drink and stared at Jake over the rim of his whisky glass.

  Jake looked at Danny, his brows knitted into a frown as he wondered what had just passed between them. Was there any meaning to it, or was Jake simply desperate to find one? Danny continued to stare back at him as he placed his empty glass on the desk, not breaking eye contact even when Jake rose from his chair and took a step so he was standing directly in front of him.

  Jake placed his hands on Danny’s shoulders, then ran them down the lapels of his finely tailored jacket before taking hold of them in his fists. Danny didn’t flinch as Jake pulled him towards him.