‘Have you called the police?’ the son with the gun asked, earning himself a nod of approval from Gee. He was taller than the others and looked a little older, and was clearly the brains of the outfit.
‘No, I figured we’d be better off finding out what’s going on first,’ said Carol. ‘That’s why I called you.’
‘Let’s go, then,’ another of her sons said, sliding a Samurai sword out from under his coat.
‘Whoa,’ Gee muttered, unnerved by the sight of it.
‘Put it away,’ the older one snapped. ‘We don’t know if anyone’s there yet.’
‘I think I should go and take a look round the back,’ Gee said. ‘It’s all dark at the front, so if anyone is there they must be in the kitchen or back bedroom.’
‘Good idea,’ the lad said. ‘But it’s probably best if you go out the fire door and cut down the side of the car park, just in case.’
At the mention of the car park, Gee remembered the BMW, and said, ‘I passed a Beemer with blacked-out windows on my way home from work tonight. It was parked up outside the old church and I thought it was a bit suss, but now I’m wondering if that’s got something to do with this.’
‘Was anyone in it?’
‘Two blokes in the front, but there could have been more in the back.’
‘Black or white?’
‘I didn’t get a good enough look,’ Gee said, frowning. ‘But what difference does that make?’
‘Chill, mate, we ain’t racists,’ the lad replied. ‘But the only white guys who drive Beemers round these ends are undercover cops, and we don’t wanna be getting gripped while we’re tooled up.’
‘Fair point,’ Gee said sheepishly. ‘Sorry.’
‘Right, Davy and Ben go with Gee,’ Carol said, resuming control. ‘Steve and Pete can stop here with me and keep an eye on the front of the house. If youse see owt dodgy going on, I don’t want no heroics,’ she added firmly. ‘Come back here and we’ll decide what to do.’
Nodding his agreement, Gee followed Carol’s sons out through the fire exit door.
42
Dom Cooper was frowning as he circled the chair Rob was tied to, which he and Austin had dragged out into the middle of the kitchen floor to give them more room. Harry Cox’s call had taken him by surprise, and it had pissed him off to hear that some random dickhead ex-cellmate of the old man had been asking about him, trying to get his name. Harry had told him that the guy had been talking about Devon Prince and his bird, and how he’d claimed to have information about some woman and her daughter which he’d seemed convinced Dom might be willing to pay for.
The names Josie and Holly had rung no bells for Dom, so when Harry had told him that the only ones he knew by those names were a mother and daughter who had lived near to Devon’s bird, and that the kid had died of an overdose five weeks before they were shot, he had assumed that the bloke had mentioned their names in order to make it look like he knew something.
Whatever the reason, it was thirteen years since Dom had killed that pair, and only a few people in his inner circle knew about it to this day. Infuriated to think that one of his trusted soldiers had betrayed him and given this cheeky cunt ammunition to blackmail him, he had decided to pay the man a visit and find out exactly what he knew and who had told him before shutting him up for good.
So far, all the bloke had done was prattle on about Josie and Holly, and how he would tell Dom where they lived if Dom promised not to hurt him. For some reason Dom couldn’t fathom, the man seemed to think that Dom had been in some kind of relationship with this Josie bird, and that she and her kid had spent the last thirteen years in hiding, terrified that he was going to kill them. He had no clue what that was about, but it was pissing him off that the dude still wouldn’t give up the name of the traitor in Dom’s crew, despite the kicking he’d already received. If Dom didn’t know better, he’d think that the man genuinely didn’t know. But there was no way he could have stumbled on this by chance. Somebody had pointed him in Dom’s direction, and Dom wasn’t leaving until he found out who it was.
‘I’m getting tired,’ he said, picking up the knife Austin had placed back on the table after escorting Suzie out to speak to the police. Moving round behind Rob, whose face was a bloody mess and whose breath sounded crackly as blood congealed in his throat, he ran the blunt side of the knife slowly across his neck. ‘I’m giving you one last chance,’ he said when the man stiffened. ‘Give me the name.’
‘I d-don’t know,’ Rob whimpered. ‘I swear . . .’
Across the room, her face deathly white, the dark shadows surrounding her eyes, Suzie moaned, ‘For God’s sake! You can see he’s telling the truth, so why are you doing this?’
‘Oh, are we friends with him again?’ Dom looked at her and raised an eyebrow. ‘Only I got the distinct impression you weren’t too happy with him when he told me about that bird and her kid.’
‘They’ve got nothing to do with this,’ Suzie murmured, so tired she could barely make sense of what was happening. ‘You said you’ve never heard of them, so how could they be involved? Whoever this Harry person is who sent you here, he must have got it wrong.’
‘Well, we know someone’s talking shit,’ Dom replied smoothly. ‘But your man here still hasn’t told me what I need to know, so . . .’
He turned the knife round and pressed the sharp edge of the blade onto Rob’s neck.
‘Don’t!’
