Framed Read online

  A grunt of laughter. The skinhead. Phew. Might not now be a fight. Frankie jerked Mickey up by the scruff of his neck and steered him out through the fire escape into the gloomy beer delivery alley outside.

  Sunshine streamed down through the metal grilles from the pavement above. You could see the soles of a dozen pairs of shoes up there and hear the chatter of the punters outside the front of the pub.

  Frankie kicked the fire escape door shut behind him and slammed Mickey hard up against the brickwork.

  ‘Right, you bastard, talk.’

  There was nothing to him. A bag of bones in a dirty grey hoodie and stained jeans. Christ. He stank of vodka and vomit. What the hell was wrong with Jack? Why the fuck would he want to hang out with someone like this?

  ‘I swear, Frankie, I swear it had nothing to do with me,’ Mickey spluttered.

  ‘What didn’t?’

  ‘Yesterday. Your brother.’

  ‘Spill it. Everything. You hold anything back and I’ll know.’ Keeping Mickey pinned to the wall by his throat, Frankie spread the fingers of his right hand across Mickey’s face, stretching his eyes wide open like he could stare right into his fucking soul. ‘Everything,’ he said. ‘Right. Fucking. Now.’

  ‘It was meant to be safe.’

  ‘What was?’

  ‘What I gave him.’

  Frankie increased the pressure on Mickey’s throat.

  ‘What I sold him,’ Mickey hurriedly corrected himself. ‘The Billy. At least that’s what it was meant to be. That’s what the geezer said.’

  Billy Whizz. Amp. Speed.

  ‘What geezer?’

  ‘Big Mo.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘He meant Mo Bishara. Ran a caff on Tottenham Court Road.’

  ‘Go on. What was wrong with it?’

  ‘I don’t know. It was cut weird. Blue.’

  ‘You try it?’

  ‘No. Ain’t gonna either, not after—’ Mickey welled up, his darting eyes glistening.

  ‘After what?’

  ‘What Jack did to that fucking girl . . .’

  Frankie upped the pressure again. ‘He did nothing. You hear me?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m sorry. All right.’

  ‘I hear you telling any cunt otherwise and you’re dead.’

  ‘I swear it. I won’t say a fucking word.’

  Frankie gritted his teeth so hard it hurt. He wanted to hit him. To fucking pay him back. For whatever part he’d played in all this. But what part had he played? Could Jack really have flipped out because of some shit he’d shoved up his nose? Flipped out enough to do what the cops said? No fucking way. Flipped out enough to not remember how he’d ended up covered in blood? Yeah, maybe that.

  ‘You saw it happen?’ he demanded. ‘Him losing it? After you sold him it?’

  Alarm flashed in Mickey’s weasel eyes. ‘No. He didn’t take it with me.’

  Backtracking. Covering his arse. The same as he would if the cops or anyone else ever asked. He’d deny fucking selling it too.

  ‘He said he was gonna have it later. And he must have . . . ’cos just now, I heard how he went crazy . . . how he did . . . what they’re saying he did . . .’

  Just now? What was it Potty-Mouth Pete said up at the bar? That Mickey was downstairs drinking with some pal?

  ‘And who exactly told you that?’

  Mickey swallowed. Frankie felt it in his fist. ‘Max. Max Winters. He’s one of Hamilton’s boys.’

  So Mickey was playing both sides, the Hamiltons and the Rileys. Frankie glanced back over his shoulder. Was Winters still in there? Had he seen him dragging Mickey out? Were more of Hamilton’s boys already on their way? He stared back into Mickey’s eyes. Squeezed his neck tighter to help him focus.

  ‘Max said Jack had been arrested. Arrested all covered in blood.’

  So they knew that as well. Means they’d know where he’d been arrested too. At Frankie’s club.

  ‘You got any left?’ Frankie said.

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘The fucking gear.’

  ‘No . . . I flushed it.’

  Was he lying? Frankie couldn’t tell. No point in shaking him down here either. Nasty he might be, stupid he wasn’t. No way he’d be carrying it now. But what else did he know about what the fuck had gone down last night?

  ‘How long were you there?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The fucking Albion. Yesterday. With Jack.’

  ‘All afternoon. Into the evening.’

  ‘With him?’

  ‘No. He left. Around four.’

  ‘And went where?’

  ‘I dunno. He said something about meeting some bird . . . a new . . . You know how he was . . . is . . .’

  ‘No. I don’t. Spell it out.’

  ‘Fresh . . . that’s how he liked them. His hookers. New to the game. Just over from Poland or whatever . . . clean . . . before they’d been passed around.’

  Frankie felt sick. What the fuck had Jack become? Why hadn’t he noticed? Why hadn’t be been there to stop it? He remembered the condom Jack had mentioned. The one on his floor. Was that from him being with whoever this girl was? And when? Before Susan Tilley got murdered? Or after? Or even during? During would give Jack an alibi. During might get him off.

  ‘But you’ve got no name? No idea where he went?’

  ‘No.’

  Frankie heard raised voices inside. The skinhead? Or Hamilton’s boys? Time to make himself scarce. He let Mickey go and watched him slither down the wall like a stain.

  ‘You hear anything – anything – and you call me.’

  Mickey nodded. ‘I swear it, Frankie. I swear I will.’

  Frankie stepped over him and walked quickly up the gloomy brick steps into the blazing sunshine above.

  9

  Frankie turned onto Oxford Street and headed east through the crowd of shoppers back towards the Ambassador Club.

  He needed to find out more about this blue speed. Pay Mo Bishara a visit. Find out who else he’d been selling to and if anyone had flipped out the way Mickey claimed Jack had. Or suffered the kind of memory loss Jack said he had.

  He’d have to be careful, mind. Mo was higher up the food chain than Mickey. And what about Kind Regards? What would he make of it? Frankie didn’t know whether to call him or not. Was this something he could use? Because finding out this gear made people flip was hardly going to help Jack’s case, was it? More like back up the cops’ theory that Jack had been high when he’d attacked Susan Tilley and her grandmother.

  But the memory loss? That was different. If Frankie could somehow explain how this gear might have made Jack black out and forget, then at least it might prove he wasn’t just deliberately not co-operating with the cops because he had something to hide.

  It would make the possibility of Jack having spent the whole night blacked out and at his flat more credible too. Nowhere near the old woman’s house. Because if this blue gear really was that strong, then how the hell was Jack meant to have driven anywhere, let alone done what they’d said?

  Frankie stopped outside Top Shop, lighting another cigarette and having a quick look round to check no one was following him. What he really needed was to find the girl. Whoever Jack had gone to meet. Whoever he’d been with last night. Find her and he might still be able to prove that Jack hadn’t attacked Susan Tilley and her grandmother at all.

  Million dollar question was how?

  He pressed on into Poland Street, seeing the club sign in the distance and hurrying towards it. He could still smell that scumbag Mickey on him from when he’d dragged him outside. He needed a shower and a change of clothes. Then what? Make a plan. About Mo Bishara. That and go see Listerman the Lawyer. About the rent. And about Jack too? Try and find out if he knew anything. Or was that just asking to get his teeth kicked in?

  He heard a scream. A woman. He turned to see a sky blue Merc coupé roaring down the street towards him. What the fuck?

  It drove right at him,
swerving up onto the pavement, engine gunning. He threw himself hard to the right. Out onto the street. Got lucky. The Merc veered left, slamming into the metal grille of the newsagent next to the club. Glass exploded all around.

  Jesus wept. Steam hissed up from the Merc’s crumpled bonnet. The driver’s door swung open. A man staggered out, half-collapsing. Early twenties, well-built, with blood all over his face.

  ‘You,’ he shouted, pointing at Frankie.

  Frankie recognised him then, from that one time Jack had pointed him out. Dougie fucking Hamilton. Shit. Piss flaps. Fuckety-fuck.

  He lurched towards Frankie. Then stumbled, looked like he might fall. Was he drunk? Or concussed from the crash? He righted himself and kept coming, shouting and swearing. Frankie sidestepped. Just in time. Dougie’s punch missed him by less than an inch.

  Dougie spun and hit the floor. Got straight back up, his black suit trousers covered in muck and ripped at the knee. His dark eyes burned beneath his messed up, bloodied black fringe. He threw himself at Frankie again.

  Frankie tensed as Dougie threw another punch. But it was weaker, slow. Frankie blocked it easily with a sideways sweep of his forearm. Dougie lined himself up for another, but Frankie took a couple of quick steps back, and again Dougie missed.

  But what the fuck was he meant to do now? Defend himself properly? AKA take Dougie down? This was Terrence Hamilton’s son, for fuck’s sake. He was untouchable. Planting him on his arse here in public in front of a gawping crowd would land him in a whole new world of shit.

  And chances were Dougie didn’t even deserve it. He was meant to be a lawyer, for fuck’s sake, not a crook. He was probably just out of his mind because of what had happened to his fiancée. Hardly deserved a beating for that.

  Another punch, another block. This time Frankie stepped in behind Dougie. Pinioned the back of his neck with his left arm. Half-Nelsoned him with his right, twisting his hand hard back up against his wrist in a lock. Sorted.

  Dougie froze, gasping in pain. Frankie offed the pressure a little, but the second Dougie sensed this, he started struggling again. Frankie had no choice. He tightened his grip again.

  ‘You’re dead. I’ll fucking kill you,’ Dougie hissed.

  ‘I don’t want to hurt you—’

  ‘Dead.’

  ‘. . . but unless you calm down—’

  ‘Fuck you,’ Dougie snarled.

  ‘I know you think he done it,’ Frankie said, ‘that my brother—’

  ‘He murdered her. That bastard. Your bastard brother. He fucking killed her . . . he’s ruined everything that I had . . .’

  The crowd was closing in. Fuck. How the hell was all this going to end?

  ‘Murderer,’ Dougie yelled. ‘He’s a fucking murderer.’

  Jesus. People started backing off . . . They thought he meant Frankie, that Frankie had killed someone. A woman ran for the nearest phone box. Good. Call the cops. Let them bloody come. Frankie couldn’t see any other way out. The second he let go of Dougie, he’d have at him again. Let the cops fucking deal with him instead.

  A screech of tires. An engine roar. Frankie wheeled round, still holding Dougie. The crowd parted, as a black Bentley slowed to a halt barely three yards from where Frankie stood.

  Private number plate: TH 1. Terence fucking Hamilton. Didn’t need to be Columbo to work that out. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Four doors sprang open. Four blokes in dark suits stepped out.

  Shit. One of them was Wilson. Shank Wilson. A Face. Maybe the Face in this part of town. More infamous even than his boss, Terence Hamilton. He was short and wiry with sharp ferrety cheekbones. A fucking killer through and through.

  He stabbed a finger at his backup crew. Frankie braced himself, as Wilson waved them forward, but they stopped a yard from him, just staring as Wilson marched across the street to the phone box. Jerking the door open, he tore the receiver from the woman’s grip and slammed it down onto its cradle.

  ‘Fuck off,’ he told her. ‘And the rest of you,’ he shouted at the crowd. ‘Show’s over. Get the fuck out of here. Now.’

  They didn’t need telling twice. They splintered left and right. Not that Shank even waited to see if they’d do as he said. He was already heading straight for Frankie. His face could have been carved out of flint.

  ‘Put him fucking down.’

  Frankie’s heart was pounding. Shank was in his late fifties and grey and haggard with it. But Frankie knew his rep. You didn’t fuck with him. No one did.

  Frankie shoved Dougie forward, hard, trying to clear himself some space for whatever the fuck was going to happen next. Was Shank going to go for him here? With people still watching from further up the street? Frankie’s fists were already up. Fuck, he wished he had a weapon. His cue. He glanced left. But the Ambassador Club door was too far. He’d never make it.

  ‘Pick him up,’ Shank snapped at his men.

  They hauled Dougie up. He was gasping for breath. He tried pulling free, but Shank shook his head. Dougie purpled with fury and twisted round to look at Frankie.

  ‘You’re fucking dead,’ he roared. ‘Fucking dead.’

  ‘Get him in the car,’ Shank said, ‘before the fucking pigs turn up . . .’

  The men dragged Dougie over to the Bentley and shoved him inside. Then Frankie and Shank were alone.

  ‘I didn’t touch him,’ Frankie said. ‘That blood on his face, it’s got nothing to do with—’

  Shank stepped right up to him, all starched collars and cuffs and slicked back hair. He stared fearlessly up into Frankie’s eyes, his hot breath stinking of aniseed.

  ‘The best thing you can do right now, my friend, is fucking disappear,’ he said, with a look in his eyes that told Frankie that he’d be just as pleased if he didn’t and decided to make a fight of this instead.

  Frankie opened his mouth, to tell Shank Wilson what he’d already tried telling Dougie: that Jack was innocent, that he hadn’t killed Susan Tilley, that he hadn’t done anything wrong.

  But what was the point? Wilson had already made up his mind.

  ‘You even think about pressing charges and I’ll come back here and skin you,’ Shank said, two long slanted veins throbbing on his forehead.

  He stared at Frankie’s fists with disdain.

  ‘I’ll see you around, cunt,’ he said.

  He crunched back across the broken glass to the front of the newsagent. Raj, the owner, was standing beside his wrecked shop grille, blinking like he’d just beamed down from another planet.

  Wilson took his wallet out and stuffed a thick wedge of notes into Raj’s shirt pocket. Didn’t say a word. Then walked back to Dougie’s mangled car and got in. He reversed it off the pavement with a squealing of tyres and stared out through the cracked windscreen at Frankie, his last words running through Frankie’s mind. Not a threat. A fucking promise. Then he drove away.

  The Bentley followed. Slow as a funeral hearse. Another face stared out at Frankie as it passed him by. Terence Hamilton. Like a block of fucking concrete, as his boy struggled and raged between the heavies in the back.

  Frankie watched both cars to the end of the street, his heart pounding. He stared at the devastation all around him. It felt like the start of a fucking war.

  10

  Frankie’s father, Bernie James, put the copy of the Evening Standard down on the chipped Formica table in Brixton prison’s visitors’ centre and smoothed it out with his clenched fist.

  Susan Tilley’s face stared up. Jack’s name too. In block capitals. Above it the headline: ‘REVENGE KILLING?’

  The old man finally cleared his throat. ‘What they’re saying . . . about the drugs . . . Is it true?’

  Frankie was sitting opposite him. He didn’t answer. Force of habit. As kids, him and Jack had never grassed each other up.

  ‘Fucking tell me, boy,’ Bernie James warned. The same tone of voice he’d always used whenever he’d been about to belt Jack and Frankie as kids.

  ‘All right,’ said Frankie, ‘som
e of it . . . but not like they’re saying in there.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘He’s not a junkie.’ The paper had run with what the cops must have fed them, about Jack being high on the night of the killing. Even had a quote off some anonymous source who claimed he’d seen Jack wasted in The Albion and named him as a known user. Better not be Mickey fucking Flynn. Frankie found out it was, and he’d pay.

  ‘You sure about that?’ asked the old man.

  ‘Positive.’

  But was he? After what Mickey had told him about the girls? The hookers. How Jack liked them. Fresh. Was that the Jack Frankie knew and loved? Hardly. He’d always been naughty. Cheeky. A handful. But never nasty. Never scummy like that. Frankie’s fault. Not Jack’s. He was his big brother. Should have been there to stop him taking a turn like this. Was going to sort it too. Put him back on the right fucking path. No matter what it took.

  But it made him wonder as well . . . how right were the papers? About how big Jack was into the drugs? It would certainly explain how come he’d been keeping so much to himself these last few months, avoiding Frankie and not coming round the club. It would explain how shit he’d started looking too.

  ‘You don’t exactly look convinced,’ the old man said.

  Frankie tried staring him down. He didn’t want him worrying, not until he’d found out himself how much of all this was true. But it was pointless. The old man just stared back. He’d never been one to back down. Not even at his trial. He’d not broken eye contact with anyone. Not the prosecution, judge, or jury.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Frankie admitted.

  The old man’s cheeks flared red. ‘Well why the fuck don’t you? He’s your little brother, for fuck’s sake. It’s your fucking job to know.’

  Frankie’s nails dug hard into his palms. Nothing ever fucking changed, did it? The old man had always held him responsible for Jack. Because he was older. Because right from the second they’d left the fucking womb, it had been Frankie’s job to keep his little brother’s nose clean as well as his own.