Framed Page 6

  ‘And the rest of it?’ said the old man. ‘You’d better not be telling me he’s mixed up in any of that shit too.’

  He meant the gang connection. According to Kind Regards, the article had been written by the same hack who’d covered the murder of Riley’s debt collector Danny Kale. He was peddling the same theory now, about an escalating turf war between Terence Hamilton’s and Tommy Riley’s gangs. An ‘undisclosed source close to the investigation’ had confirmed that the cops had not discounted the possibility that Susan Tilley had been battered to death in revenge for what had happened to Danny Kale.

  ‘The way I hear it, he was driving,’ Frankie said.

  ‘You what? For who?’

  ‘Tommy.’

  The old man’s expression darkened. Him and Riley went back, way back. Word was the old man had once even worked for him, or with him, some sort of association at least. Frankie had never dared ask. The old man and Riley hadn’t spoken for years, even though Riley owned the building the club was in. All the dealings on the club’s rent had always gone through Listerman. Frankie didn’t know if they were outright enemies, but he sure looked like he wanted to kill him right now.

  ‘He told me he’d stopped,’ Frankie said.

  ‘Well, you should have fucking checked.’

  ‘I did.’ But as soon as he said it, Frankie knew he should have done more. Not just accepted what Jack had told him about how he’d been making his money these last six months promoting club nights. He should have looked in on him. Seen who he was hanging out with. And fucking sorted him out if he’d caught him lying. Which according to Kind Regards, he would have. Because that whole time he’d been working for Tommy Riley instead.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  The old man’s breathing was coming hard. He lit another cigarette. ‘He’s gonna need protection,’ he said. ‘From cunts like these . . .’

  He said these last words sharp and loud enough for every other fucker in the room to hear. A couple of the uniformed cons glanced across, but quickly looked back at their visitors when they saw who’d spoken. The same went for the guard, who stopped and looked over, before continuing his slow circuit around the room like nothing had happened. Respect. The old man had earned it on the outside. He’d done the same here.

  ‘He’s not gonna get sent down,’ Frankie said.

  ‘Says who?’

  ‘Says me. He didn’t do it.’

  A bitter smile crossed the old man’s lips. ‘And that’s supposed to make a difference, is it?’

  ‘I mean it. I’m not gonna let it happen. Not again.’ Frankie’s eyes locked on the old man’s. A promise.

  The old man nodded. ‘That’s as may be,’ he said. ‘But hear this: Hamilton won’t wait for the trial. He won’t give a fuck about that. The second they’ve charged him . . . the second he’s out of that cop shop and stuck in here or wherever else they stick him on remand . . . that’s when they’ll get him. They’ll have him fucking battered and killed.’

  Shank Wilson’s leering face flashed into Frankie’s mind. Word was, it was here he’d earned his nickname. Inside, during a ten-year stretch for manslaughter. He’d been the go-to man for slitting people’s throats in the washrooms, or cutting their eyeballs clean out. And Hamilton would have other people, other Shanks, still in here now. To do his bidding. To cut his fucking throats.

  The old man was right. Jack wouldn’t stand a chance.

  ‘What do I need to do?’ Frankie said.

  ‘Go to him.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Riley.’

  Frankie’s mouth turned dry. It wasn’t just the obvious bad blood between the old man and Riley, or even Frankie owing Riley rent – though Christ knew that was all bad enough. But more than that, Frankie didn’t want to even step foot into Riley’s world. Ever since he’d been a kid, he’d seen what happened to people who did. Who got involved. In that side of London. The side that ate you up. They fucking changed. Like Jack. Or ended up in here where his dad was now. And Frankie wanted something else for his life. Not even better, just not this.

  The old man said, ‘You tell him I sent you. You tell him I need him to take care of my boy.’

  The way he said it . . . it was like a demand, like he was owed. But for what?

  ‘There’s something else,’ Frankie said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The copper in charge. His name’s Snaresby.’

  The old man scratched irritably at the fresh scab on his cheek where he must have cut himself shaving. ‘What of it?’

  ‘Kind Regards said you knew him. Both you and Mum.’

  ‘Not any more.’

  ‘The way he was talking . . . the way he looked so fucking pleased when they got hold of Jack . . . it was like it was personal, Dad.’

  ‘You just watch him. Don’t fucking trust him. He’s a bastard. The very worst fucking sort.’

  ‘Time,’ the guard called out.

  ‘Yeah, we all got plenty of that,’ Frankie’s old man called back, looking round grinning, letting the whole world know he wasn’t ruffled, that he was granite.

  As chairs scraped across the floor and people got up around them, he leant in close to Frankie and quietly said, ‘Jack’s not the only one who’s gonna need protection.’

  ‘I can handle myself.’

  The old man gripped his wrist. ‘I know that, son,’ he said, ‘which is why I’m telling you that whoever comes at you might come at you twice as fucking hard, because they might know that too . . .’

  ‘I’ll be all right.’

  The old man leant in even closer. ‘You remember that new boiler we put in at the flat?’

  ‘New?’ Frankie couldn’t help smiling. It was nearly ten years old.

  ‘Have a little nosey round the back, eh? There’s a couple of loose bricks that could do with some attention. You make sure you take care of that for me, will you, son? Just as soon as you can.’

  11

  The Ambassador Club was busy when Frankie got back, with all but one of the tables being used. Frankie was surprised, and pleased. People reacted funny round places the cops had raided. Sometimes shunned them for a bit, like whatever had caused it might be catching.

  Slim was behind the bar, chatting to Ash Crowther and ‘Sea Breeze’ Strinati. Frankie ducked in beside him, eyeing the vodka optic thirstily, but pouring himself a Diet Coke instead. He drained it in one. It was still sweltering outside. Getting back from Brixton had been hell. And he was still knackered, dehydrated and hung-over from last night. Had needed a couple of drinks to calm himself after his run-in with Dougie Hamilton. More than a couple. He didn’t even remember going to bed.

  ‘How did it go with your dad?’ Slim asked. Didn’t bother keeping his voice down. Sea Breeze and Ash were old friends. Had been drinking here since way before even the old man’s days in charge.

  ‘Not good. He’s gutted.’

  ‘We all are,’ said Sea Breeze.

  ‘Nice kid, your brother,’ said Ash. ‘The papers have got it all wrong.’

  ‘And the cops,’ said Sea Breeze.

  ‘Aye, and those wankers too.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Frankie said. He meant it. It felt good having people he knew and liked around him today.

  ‘He’ll be all right,’ Ash said.

  ‘Don’t talk like that,’ said Sea Breeze.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘In that miserable tone of voice. Like he’s already friggin’ well doomed.’

  ‘I wasn’t.’

  ‘Well, that’s how it sounded.’

  ‘Well, you should get your bloody ears syringed, you old git.’

  Slim rolled his dark eyes at Frankie. Sea Breeze and Ash had been bickering for decades. It wasn’t that they didn’t like each other, more that they just really enjoyed rubbing each other up the wrong way. Particularly after a few drinks. Too much like each other, Slim reckoned. Both in their sixties and moody with it. Hearing them talking was like watching a monkey fight its ow
n reflection, was how Slim had once summed it up.

  Frankie poured another Diet Coke and drained that too. He pictured the rack of optics on the wall behind him and did his best to ignore the two beer taps in front. But hell’s tits, it was tempting. To get totally hammered. Drink himself into a stupor like he had done last night. To forget. But then what? He’d have to sober up some time. And deal with what was going on. Because it sure as hell didn’t look like anyone else was going to sort this shit out for him any time soon.

  ‘Fancy a couple of quick frames?’ asked Sea Breeze.

  ‘Yeah,’ Frankie said, ‘why not?’ Playing always helped him think, helped him relax.

  But quick? Well that was a joke. Sea Breeze was without doubt the slowest player Frankie had ever met. Glacially slow, was how Ash always put it. So slow you could pop out for curry between shots. But slow was exactly what Frankie wanted right now. The rest of the last twenty-four hours had passed in a blur. This routine, this steady lining up of shots and potting of balls and building of breaks, and waiting for Sea Breeze to take his turn . . . Frankie sank back into it, feeling his whole body relax like he was sitting in a bath.

  ‘So how’s the tournament coming along?’ Sea Breeze asked as he painstakingly returned the blue Frankie had just potted to its spot.

  He meant The Soho Classic. The new tournament Frankie had been trying to get up and running. His tournament. One he wanted to launch here in the Ambassador to help really put it on the map. And boost membership, of course. Only last week, he’d finished putting together a loose affiliation of central London clubs and players who were keen to support it.

  Only last week? For fuck’s sake, it could have been a decade ago, so much had happened since. And when would he next get a chance to move the prize on?

  ‘I’m still on the hunt for a sponsor,’ he told Sea Breeze, as he stroked another red home, dropping himself nicely into position behind the black.

  He’d met with one of the capital’s biggest bookie chains two weeks ago. They’d sounded interested. Had wanted to hear more. He was meant to be seeing another potential backer next week. A hedge fund manager. Whatever the fuck that was. Some kind of City boy set-up. Loaded, according to his mate who’d put them in touch.

  But what did any of that matter now? If they’d seen the article in the Standard, the chances of them returning his calls were zilch. The plain fact was that until all of this had blown over, until he’d got Jack’s name cleared, he was going to have to put the whole tournament – along with the rest of his future – on ice.

  ‘How big a prize you planning?’

  ‘Depends on the sponsor . . . shit.’

  Frankie stepped back from the table. He’d missed the black by a whisker.

  ‘You planning on getting any pros in?’ Sea Breeze asked, as he walked round the table and studied his options.

  ‘Amateur for now. Though it would be nice to put on an exhibition match, eh? Maybe get a serious name in.’

  ‘Someone like “The Rocket”?’

  ‘Yeah, why not?’ said Frankie. ‘You never know. Though he might be a little bit too fast for you, eh?’

  Sea Breeze smiled, getting the joke. Then went back to deciding on what shot to play next.

  Frankie sparked up a Rothmans. His third pack that he could remember since the one he’d bought on his way over to see Mickey Flynn. Exhaling, he pictured his old man’s expression when he’d found out Jack had been working for Riley. Loathing mixed with fear. His dad had wanted out of that life too. Still did. The tournament was something they’d talked about over and over again since he’d been inside. He was still snooker loopy. Just talking about how it might be, what players might one day show up, made his black eyes light up. Frankie desperately wanted to make it happen. For him as well as the club. He could see him here watching it so easily, smiling at what they’d built.

  ‘Well, you know you can count on all of us here, everyone on the ladder, to support it,’ Sea Breeze said.

  ‘Thanks. It means a lot. It really does.’

  Frankie looked him in the eyes when he said it. They both knew he wasn’t just talking about the tournament. Sea Breeze, Ash, Slim, along with a few of the other regulars still took time to visit the old man. And not just out of duty either, but because they were mates and, well, because they all knew that this place just wasn’t the same without him.

  Frankie pictured the old man’s face again, this time in the visitors’ room when he’d mentioned Snaresby. He glanced up at the ceiling, wondering what the fuck might be waiting for him up there when he checked out that brickwork. Did he even want to find out?

  ‘Oi, Frankie,’ Slim shouted out across the bar.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Phone.’

  ‘Who?’ Frankie mouthed.

  ‘Kind Regards.’

  ‘Tell him to call me in the flat. Sorry,’ he told Sea Breeze, ‘I gotta go.’

  12

  Frankie hurried upstairs and grabbed the living-room phone on the third ring.

  ‘I’ve got good news and bad news,’ Kind Regards said.

  ‘Bad news first.’ Might as well get it over with.

  ‘They’ve matched the blood found on Jack and at his flat to Susan Tilley. Hers and her grandmother’s too.’

  Shit-a-delic. Frankie sank down onto the sofa. He’d known this was coming, but still. Jesus. His shoulders slumped.

  ‘And that’s accurate, is it?’ he said. ‘Whatever tests they did. If they say it’s someone’s blood, then they’re right? A hundred per cent. That’s it?’

  ‘Afraid so.’

  Fuck . . . fuck, fuck. It was all Frankie could do not to throw the phone across the room.

  ‘Still doesn’t mean he did it, though, does it?’ he finally said. ‘Just because he’s got it on him doesn’t mean he got it on him when he was actually there doing what they said . . .’

  Frankie knew he sounded like he was grasping at straws. But he still couldn’t believe Jack had done it. There had to be another explanation. No matter how cut and dried it looked.

  ‘No, but it doesn’t look too good, either,’ Kind Regards said. ‘Particularly if he’s got no other way to explain how it got there.’

  The memory loss.

  ‘I spoke to someone,’ Frankie said. ‘About that.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’ He’d wanted to wait before telling Kind Regards about it, until he’d had a chance to track down Mo. ‘The point is . . . there might be an explanation . . . something he took . . . that might have made him forget where he really was that night . . . Wherever the fuck he was that wasn’t there . . .’

  That might have made him violent too. Forget mentioning that. Keep him focussed on proving Jack’s innocence, not worrying about his guilt.

  ‘You mean drugs?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And you can prove that?’

  ‘I’m working on it.’ But was he? Frankie pictured himself this morning. Drenched in vodka sweats. Upturned takeaway tins on the floor. Chucking up in the sink. If anyone was a fucking mess, it was him.

  ‘Like I advised you not to?’ Kind Regards said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Frankie admitted. ‘Exactly like that.’

  A pause on the other end of the line. ‘Well, if we could prove it was something he took . . . that might have affected him . . . his behaviour . . . maybe even his memory . . .’

  He meant other behaviour – nasty behaviour – crazy shit that Jack might have thought, or done.

  ‘. . . then I suppose . . .’ he went on, ‘and I’d need to talk to a barrister about this, mind you . . . but it might be possible we could enter a plea of temporary insanity . . . and claim that at the time of the crime he committed—’

  ‘That he didn’t commit,’ Frankie corrected him sharply.

  ‘Right, but listen, Frankie, you’ve also got to be realistic . . . the way the police case is shaping up now, it’s possible that our best defence might end up being just t
his . . . to claim diminished responsibility, argue that Jack didn’t appreciate the nature or wrongfulness of the acts he committed at the time because of the influence of the drug he was under . . . Because then we could go for manslaughter, not murder, you see.’

  Frankie did see. But he didn’t like it. Not one little bit.

  ‘But even then,’ warned Kind Regards, ‘it’ll be a stretch, particularly with the cops claiming his gang affiliation gave him a stone-cold sober motive anyway . . .’

  A back-up plan. That’s what Kind Regards meant. That’s all he saw this as. They could use the fact that Jack might have been on some nasty, head-fuck of a drug that had caused his amnesia and whatever else as a back-up plan, if they didn’t come up with anything else. Anything better. Anything that actually proved that Jack hadn’t killed the girl at all.

  They could use it to possibly reduce his sentence, but not keep him out.

  What Frankie needed was the girl. Whoever it was Jack had gone off to meet. Whoever might have been there with him at his flat. Find her and they might not need an insanity plea at all.

  ‘You said you had some good news too?’

  ‘They’ve shown us the cctv footage.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘The car . . . it’s Jack’s all right.’

  ‘How the fuck is that good?’

  ‘You can see the driver.’

  Frankie’s stomach tensed. ‘And?’ If it was Jack on the cctv at the old lady’s place, they were fucked.

  ‘He . . . she . . . whoever . . . they were wearing a balaclava.’

  Frankie was already on his feet. He punched the air. So that’s why those bastards hadn’t shown Kind Regards and Jack the footage the first time they’d interviewed him. Because they hadn’t been able to ID the driver. They’d been hoping the mere threat of the footage would be enough to make Jack ’fess up.

  But he hadn’t.

  Because he hadn’t been there.

  Because that driver wasn’t bloody him.

  Please let that be so. Please let that be why Jack kept on denying it. Because of that and not because of the horrible alternative – because he already knew the driver had been wearing a balaclava, because it had been him.