Framed Page 7

  No. Not that. Frankie wouldn’t, couldn’t believe that.

  ‘And what about the old lady?’

  ‘She’s still in intensive care, but alive.’

  ‘Good.’ And not just because she obviously didn’t deserve it. ‘Because if she comes round, she might still be able to say who her real attacker was. Because it wasn’t Jack. In spite of that blood work. And you need to believe that too.’

  ‘I will, Frankie,’ he said. ‘I mean, I do.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘There’s one more bit of bad news.’

  Frankie’s heart skipped a beat. ‘What?’

  ‘You know I’m happy to work pro bono on this . . .’

  ‘And I appreciate it, you know that too.’

  ‘Right, but like I said, your brother’s going to need a barrister . . . unless some miracle turns up . . . now that this looks like it’s going to trial . . .’

  Frankie’s cheeks prickled. ‘Who? Like that overpaid ponce who took our money and didn’t keep Dad out of jail?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be thinking of using him again, but to be fair—’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ Frankie said, knowing already how this sentence was likely to end: but to be fair, I don’t think anyone else could have kept your father at liberty either . . . Not with the way he’d been stitched up by the cops.

  ‘You find me the best that there is,’ Frankie said.

  ‘And the money to pay for it?’

  ‘You let me worry about that.’ He was going to have to do a hell of a lot more than just worry. He was going to have to be inventive. He was going to have to somehow conjure up that cash from thin air.

  After he’d finished the call, he went over to the window and looked out. The sun was beating down on the street below. Tiny diamonds of glass left from Dougie Hamilton’s crash still glittered like stars on the tarmac.

  Frankie remembered Shank Wilson’s face and his promise. And he remembered again what his old man had told him. About the brickwork. What if it wasn’t something bad, but something good? Pissing hell . . . what if it was cash? What if right now in his hour of fucking need, the old man was about to come through?

  He walked slowly through to the bathroom, a part of him still dreading what he might find. Martha, Megan, or Molly or May – the phone number she’d left him was still written in bright red lipstick on the mirror above the sink.

  He ducked down and opened the airing cupboard door. Inside was the boiler and a couple of shelves of towels he hadn’t even known were there. He shoved them aside and got down on his knees and peered in. He could see the exposed brickwork at the back, but none of it looked loose. He reached round the right side of the boiler and started pushing at the individual bricks.

  It was only when he started working his way down the left side that he felt something shift. He peered in closer. Yeah, right there at the bottom. There were two bricks on top of one another with their mortar chipped out.

  Adrenaline buzzed through him as he pulled them out one at a time. There was a cavity behind. Something in it. A dull glow of metal. A box? He slid it out. Had to use the tips of his fingers to guide it. It was that close a fit. What the? It was a shoe-polish tin. Heavy too. When he tilted it over, something solid moved inside.

  ‘Right,’ he said out loud. ‘Let’s see what we’ve got.’

  Still kneeling, he prised the lid off. Whatever was inside was swaddled in cloth. It had to be important. He knew that. Or the old man wouldn’t have hidden it. It had to be something that could help him and help Jack too. But what?

  He lifted it out and carefully unwrapped it, then nearly dropped it in surprise when he saw what it was. A gun. A revolver. Like something out of the old Commando comics him and Jack had used to love reading as kids. And something else too. Fucking hell. Six shiny bullets in a plastic ziplock bag.

  13

  Frankie woke up next morning feeling physically better than he had done in days. He’d hit the gym the night before, then had a microwaved spud, cheese and beans and an early night.

  He took a shower and then put in a call to Tommy Riley’s office. After being kept on hold for nearly five minutes, the girl who’d answered told him to come by Riley’s office that evening at six.

  Frankie pulled on a hoodie, jeans and trainers and picked up his car from the multi-storey over by the Raymond Revuebar. A jet black Ford Capri. Retro as hell. Like something out of Minder. And all the more gorgeous for it. His dad had won it in a bet when Frankie was sixteen. He’d been going to sell it, but Frankie had begged him not to. He’d loved it from the second he’d heard its V8 engine growling outside the club.

  The old man had given it to him for his next birthday and he’d passed his test two weeks later. Frankie still had a photo of the two of them sitting here, him grinning like he’d just won the lottery, the first time he’d taken the old man out for a spin.

  He slipped on his New York Yankees baseball cap and aviator shades and ripped it over to Tottenham Court Road, past the rows of cafés and discount electronic stores. Mo Bishara’s place was called Sahara. A ground-floor restaurant with a golden metal sign out front glinting in the morning sun. Slim had snagged him the address off one of the Arab lads he played chess with. He’d not mentioned Frankie’s name.

  A couple of punters were sitting outside, smoking a hookah that smelt sweetly of rose water and apples. A young lad who couldn’t have been more than fifteen was serving inside behind the bar. Frankie ordered a heavily sugared coffee and sat drinking it at a corner table, flicking through the paper. More stuff on Jack, but nothing new. Only made page four. The cops had nothing new to say. Not that they needed to. Not with them thinking they’d already bagged their man.

  Frankie kept his baseball cap and shades on. He’d only ever met Mo once, in a bar off Piccadilly at a rammed party Jack had taken him to a year back. They’d shaken hands but hadn’t spoken other than to say hello. Frankie was pretty confident Mo wouldn’t know him from Adam even if he did clock him today. But no harm in doing his best to make sure.

  About an hour later, just as Frankie was finishing his third cup of coffee, Mo came through from some private room hidden at the back of the restaurant. He wasn’t alone. With him was a balding minder with a strawberry birthmark on his forehead who looked like he’d recently swallowed a hippo. Nearly six-and-a-half foot tall and a little less wide.

  Mo was an altogether shorter proposition, but stocky with it, and in spite of the stifling heat was wearing a three-quarter-length leather coat with its collars turned up, the same shiny slick black colour as his hair. Frankie leant further forward with his head in his hands as they walked past and sat with their backs to him at the bar and ordered two espressos.

  Mo’s rep was a bad one. He was a fucking wolf, the kind of nasty bastard who’d eat most people alive. A ragtag of small-time street pimps and dealers answered to him. He dealt in hookers, rent, weed, coke, ketamine, heroin and pills – and, according to Mickey, this crazy blue shit too.

  His sphere of influence extended from here to Warren Street in the north and Great Russell Street down south. The Rileys and the Hamiltons of this world might have been longer established and better organised, but much like Notting Hill, Chinatown and Brixton, round here was immigrant turf – the old cockney and Essex firms had long since surrendered.

  Frankie had to be careful. He had no intention of talking to Mo today. Especially with that gorilla around. But when he did, he was aiming on putting the frighteners on him big style to make sure he didn’t hold anything back. Which meant he’d need to somehow find a way of doing it without Mo seeing his face, or else he’d be hunted down.

  His plan was to follow him today and find out where he lived, so he could then pay him a visit in private. Slim had already done some asking around. He’d not come up with a home address, but he’d found out Mo was recently divorced, meaning he might be living alone, which would make any home visit a whole lot fucking easier, of course.

  Frankie trie
d earwigging, but Mo and his giant pal were talking Arabic and Frankie couldn’t understand a word. Five minutes later another bloke came in. A white guy with a mottled complexion, a scraped-back black ponytail, shiny new suit and briefcase, and a spotless pair of white Reeboks. He gave Mo a hug and got a grin in return. He had a Manchester accent and Mo switched to speaking in English too. Frankie listened as they shot the breeze, talking about football mostly. Then the white guy said his goodbyes and left, leaving his briefcase behind on the floor.

  A drop-off then. So what was in the case? Drugs? Or maybe cash? Enough to sort out Frankie’s problems at the club? Stop it. That was the trouble with sneaking around like this. You started thinking like a criminal too.

  He pictured the gun where he’d hidden it inside his mattress. The bullets as well. Start carrying something like that and who knew how it might all end up? If he’d had it when Dougie had attacked him, would he have used it? Threatened him with it? Worse? Fuck knew. But if he had, he’d be inside just like Jack and then they’d both be screwed.

  Two minutes later and Mo and his minder, or whoever the fuck this was, headed out, the fat lad carrying the case. Frankie stayed put, watching Mo shooting the breeze with the smokers on the pavement outside. Short he might be, but he still had a mean look about him that made passing pedestrians steer well clear.

  He finally headed off. Frankie waited ten seconds before following, slapping a tenner down on the counter on his way out. He followed Mo, hanging twenty yards back. Not that he needed to. Mo didn’t glance back once, clearly never suspecting he was being tailed, probably never thinking even for a second that anyone would fucking dare.

  He took the next right and then a left after that, before ducking into a corner store for a pack of smokes and a bottle of full-fat Coke. Another ten yards and he turned right into an old cobbled Victorian mews, trailing his fingers lovingly along the powder blue paint of what must have been his Aston Martin, before taking out his keys to open the front door to his house.

  Number nine.

  Fucking gotcha.

  Frankie would be paying Mo Bishara a visit very soon.

  14

  Tommy Riley gazed at Frankie, his eyes moving slowly over him like he was memorising every part of his face. He hauled in another lungful from the short, fat butt of his cigar, smoke funnelling from his nostrils and up towards the dark red ceiling of his office as he slowly exhaled.

  ‘You look like him . . . like you father.’

  His voice was low and gravelly, almost a whisper. The way he said the words – slowly, deliberately – it was like he’d never set eyes on Frankie before. Which was bollocks, of course. Because Riley had seen him plenty over the years, back in the early days of the Ambassador, when him and the old man had still been friends.

  And more recently too, the occasional glance across a crowded room, when they’d ended up in the same bar late at night. But as for actual conversation? Well, Riley hadn’t said a word to him in years. So long that Frankie couldn’t remember him ever having spoken to him at all.

  ‘Not like now, of course,’ Riley continued. ‘All fat and knackered and grey . . .’

  He let his comment hang for a second, clearly waiting to see how Frankie might react to the insult. Well, fuck him. Frankie wasn’t going to give him the pleasure. He stared instead out of the fifth-floor window of Riley’s office across the rooftops of Soho’s red light district. No point in pissing Riley off, but he wasn’t here to kiss his arse either. Riley wouldn’t respect him for it. He’d just think he was weak.

  ‘Just like the rest of us old boys these days, eh?’ Riley finally said.

  Frankie turned back to face him. A joke, but a warning too. For him not to underestimate who he was dealing with. Because Riley wasn’t fat, or knackered, or even grey. He had a chest like a beer barrel, a tan like teak, and expensively cut, slicked-back hair as black as freshly poured tar. He was at the top of his game, at liberty and at large. He was nothing like Frankie’s dad and they both fucking knew it.

  ‘No, I mean how he was when he was your age . . .’ Riley said. ‘How we both were, with our whole lives stretching out before us. You remind me of him, you know, Frankie. You’ve got that same lean look of potential about you he once had. You’ve clearly found yourself a half decent tailor too.’

  ‘Adam of London, Portobello Road,’ Frankie said. He’d ditched his hoodie and jeans for something more business-like, a blue mohair suit.

  ‘Him of the “Dog’s Bollocks” fame,’ Riley said.

  Frankie nodded. Riley was talking about the sign in the shop’s window which boasted how good their suits would make you look.

  ‘I’ve not been there in a while,’ said Riley. ‘But fuck it, eh? You’re not here to talk about whistles and flutes.’

  ‘I’m here to talk about Jack.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘He needs protection.’ No point in fucking around. Just get to the point.

  Riley got up and walked over to the far side of his office and pushed the corner of one of the wall’s wooden panels. It gave with a click, revealing a short, gloomy carpeted corridor leading off the other side.

  ‘Excuse the cloak and dagger,’ he said. ‘It’s just that the Mrs would have my bollocks in a fucking sling if she knew . . . you know how women are . . .’

  Riley disappeared through the doorway, beckoning Frankie to follow. Frankie ducked through after him. What the fuck? The corridor was actually a viewing gallery. A floor-to-ceiling two-way mirror ran the length of its left-hand wall. A brightly lit dressing room on the other side. A bunch of girls from the lap dancing club downstairs were getting dressed and undressed, clueless they were being watched.

  ‘I like a nice view when I’m thinking,’ Riley said.

  Frankie stared.

  ‘You can take your pick if you want.’

  ‘Thanks, but no thanks. I’m fine.’

  ‘Not a queer, are you?’ Riley asked.

  ‘No,’ Frankie said.

  Didn’t look like Riley gave a shit either way. He just shrugged and watched appreciatively as one of the girls sat down topless right in front of him and gazed into the mirror as she started to put her make-up on.

  ‘I heard Dougie Hamilton tried you run you down,’ Riley said.

  Frankie nodded at Riley’s half-reflection in the glass, realising his host was no longer watching the girl, but watching him.

  ‘He missed,’ Frankie said.

  ‘Missed with his punches too, the way I hear.’

  ‘He was upset.’

  Riley half-raised an eyebrow. ‘Sounds like you’re defending him?’ he said, shooting him a curious look.

  ‘He’d just lost his fiancée.’

  ‘No fucking kidding. But that’s not why he missed. He missed ’cos you were better. The better man. I heard you dealt with him and then stood your ground an’ all when that ugly little fucker Wilson turned up.’

  Riley was hard, all right, but Frankie wondered if even he’d say that to Shank Wilson’s face.

  ‘I’m always on the lookout for new talent,’ Riley said.

  ‘Like my brother?’ The words were out before Frankie could stop them.

  Riley sniffed. ‘So you heard he was working for me?’

  ‘I heard.’

  ‘And don’t much approve, by the sounds of it.’

  Frankie said nothing. What could he say? That he’d rather Jack had done anything with his life instead of that.

  ‘You think your brother done it?’ Riley asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  Adrenaline buzzed through Frankie. What was Riley saying? Did he know something? Had he got proof? Frankie tried to read his face, but the older man was giving nothing away. He was watching the girl again.

  ‘But someone certainly wants him to look guilty, eh?’ Riley said. ‘Probably whoever’s really behind that poor girl’s death.’

  Frankie’s nails dug into his palms. He had to be careful. What
if – and God knew he didn’t want to believe it – Jack really had been acting on Riley’s behalf like the cops said? Or what if one of Riley’s other goons was behind the killing and Jack had got somehow involved? Then Riley would try and steer Frankie off, make him think anyone else was to blame except him. Don’t get sucked in by this guy. Just get what you came for.

  ‘Dougie Hamilton told me Jack was as good as dead,’ Frankie said.

  ‘I heard he said the same to you.’

  ‘I can look after myself, but—’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Riley said. ‘I’ll make sure your brother’s got back-up. As soon as he’s on remand. And after that too, if it gets to that. For no matter how long. I always look after my own.’

  My own. The way he said it. Like Jack was a possession. Was his.

  ‘What do you mean, if . . .?’

  ‘Well, the way I hear it, Jack’s got himself a guardian angel, hasn’t he? Who’s got it into his head to prove he’s done nothing wrong. Which in my book means he’ll have to prove who really did do the wicked deed instead.’

  So he’d heard Frankie had been asking around. From who? Mickey? That wanker must have said something. Must have told Riley Frankie was on the warpath and was trying to get to the truth.

  ‘Which of course is all well and dandy,’ Riley continued, ‘and completely understandable too, all things considered . . .’ His dark eyes bored into Frankie’s like drills. ‘But there’s another way of looking at it . . .’

  What was this? Was Riley warning him off? In case he caused him even more trouble? Well, he could go fuck himself. No fucking way was Frankie backing off.

  ‘I understand you not wanting to work for me . . . yet,’ Riley said. He was staring hard at Frankie again. ‘. . . and wanting to keep your independence . . .’

  Yet.

  ‘But you proving your brother had nothing to do with this would certainly pull some heat off me and my organisation, as far as the filth are concerned. In fact, I’d see it as a favour – one I’d be inclined to look very kindly on indeed – particularly in regard to any outstanding debts you might owe . . .’