“Ben who?” he breathed, straightening up in his seat.
“You know exactly who I’m referring to – Ben Cooper, the big bastard of a firefighter and his friends, Amanda, Rick and Eddie.”
“Never heard of them.”
“That’s strange because we saw Amanda come out of your house just this morning. She looked pretty pissed off.”
Finally it dawned on Mickey that he was on very shaky ground. “Look, it was nothing to do with me. They approached me asking if I could shift some drugs they’d somehow got hold of and I told them no. That was it.”
“Nice try Mickey but sorry, it’s not going to wash. While you were unconscious we had a look at your phone. A password is much smarter to use than a fingerprint. We just swiped your finger across it while you were out for the count. We’ve seen all your messages. Unfortunately they were only the most recent messages. The police seized all your electronics when you were arrested for the burglary. You’ve used a code that to anyone not in the know would just look like messages to a friend but the last few Amanda was so furious she didn’t bother to use the code. She said she’s going to cut off your cock with a pair of garden shears. She sent that just a few minutes after she stormed out of your house. What we want to know is how you and the firefighters met?”
“I’m saying nothing. So, unless you want to die a painful death, you’ll let me fucking go.”
“You’re going to tell us Mickey, unless you want to spend the rest of the night in unbearable pain.”
“Stick it up your fanny.”
Faith’s lip curled. “You really are a horrible little man. I take it you heard what happened to your accomplice, Patrick Prentiss?”
“Who?”
Faith sighed. “This is taking too long and we’re on a time limit. All right boys, you can go to work on him.”
Mickey started to panic when Faith stepped aside and her brothers moved in on him clutching hammers, baseball bats and pliers.
“No, wait,” he cried when Vance tore off his shoes and socks.
“Jesus, your feet are manky Mickey,” exclaimed Jason.
Kevin laughed. “Manky Mickey. That’s a good name for him.”
Vance grasped his big toenail with the pliers, making Mickey shriek.
“No, wait, please.”
“Stop Vance,” said Faith.
“Thank you,” breathed Mickey shakily.
The corner of her mouth lifted into a smile when Vance looked at her questioningly. “You should use them on his bollocks instead.”
“No, no,” yelled Mickey when they started to unfasten his jeans. “I’ll tell.”
“Go on then,” said Faith.
“I met Ben at the casino,” he sighed. “We both had a bad night, lost quite a bit of cash, so we had a few drinks at the bar to commiserate. We said how we never had enough money, that all we needed was one big payday to get back on our feet. I mentioned I knew someone who was ripe for turning over.”
“Us?”
“I never mentioned your family specifically but yeah, you. I said it should be an easy job, you were all a bit green around the gills, that you didn’t have the experience to stop a blag, which you didn’t.”
“Just get on with it,” snapped Faith.
“He said he was interested and that he might know others who were, so we swapped numbers. I didn’t seriously expect to hear from him but he called the next day, said he and his friends were in. It shocked me but when I heard his friends were firefighters too I knew we could pull it off. It went from something that seemed pure fantasy to a job that could actually be done.”
“So that’s how they got into the vault?” said Faith. “With your experience of robberies it wouldn’t have been hard.”
“I was the brains behind it,” he said proudly.
“When did Dillon get involved?”
“Pretty much from the start. He was well keen.”
“You let him in on it even after he left you behind at the robbery to get savaged by a dog?”
“I was pissed off about that but if I’d been the faster runner I wouldn’t have had a problem leaving him behind. Plus he worked for you, he was our way in. He had access to your security system, he knew the routines and he’d spotted that tosser Patrick Prentiss was the weak link.”
“You needed his inside knowledge?”
“Yeah. It’s lucky for Ben and his crew that Dillon didn’t go with them. If he had he probably would have accidentally injured them in some way. He was the one who approached Patrick.”
“Patrick told us Ben approached him.”
“Oh dear, did someone else pull the wool over your eyes? You really are out of your depth.”
“Patrick probably didn’t want to admit that he’d been in contact with someone who was murdered shortly after,” said Vance. “But for that lie he’s going to end up with more snapped fingers.”
“When were they supposed to give you the drugs?” Faith asked Mickey.
“The day you stole them back.”
“Why not give them to you straightaway?”
“Because I knew you lot would tear the town apart looking for them. I didn’t want you to catch me with them.”
“And what were you going to do with them?”
“I had buyers waiting in Liverpool and Nottingham. They started getting pissed off when I didn’t deliver and these are not people you want to annoy.”
“You stole the Maguire’s drugs to sell on the Maguire’s territory? Have you got a death wish or don’t you know that they own Liverpool?”
“Course I know but I was going to divvy it up into small amounts and pass it onto the lower level dealers. I was doing business with a nasty Albanian gang in Nottingham and when I didn’t deliver the goods they threatened to chop off
