Framed Read online

  ‘The same goes for not calling you in,’ she said. ‘But . . . well, you seemed in a lot of pain for one thing. I just wanted to check you were OK?’

  He nodded, even though the truth was his bollocks still hurt like hell. She smiled, looking genuinely relieved.

  ‘I know you’re not a bad bloke, Frankie. And I don’t want this to go any worse for you than it already has.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I appreciate it.’ He smiled.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just who’d have thought it? You, of all people, becoming a cop.’

  ‘Of all people?’

  ‘Well, all right then . . . Of all people, apart from me.’

  Schoolyard fixer, smoker, lad about town, Bernie James’s son – no one at their East End Comp had ever expected Frankie James’s life to run exactly smooth.

  ‘You think I’d be better off doing something else?’ She pulled a pack of Silk Cut from her handbag and struck a match.

  He remembered the car across the street from Jack’s flat, the hidden smoker inside. Had that been her? Had she watched him breaking in? Was that why she’d gone up to Jack’s? Or had she been there for something else?

  ‘Maybe,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Three reasons. History, English and Art. You were a straight-A student. Could have done anything you liked.’

  She still hadn’t lit her cigarette. ‘You remember what subjects I did for A-level?’

  He felt himself blushing. Shit. Too much information. He took a swig of coffee, wincing as it burnt his throat on the way down. He was still a bit pissed. Time to sober up.

  ‘Yeah, well I did English and History with you, didn’t I?’ he said. ‘And I remember you doing Art, because old Mr Hayden was always giving you prizes in assembly. I always thought you’d end up working in a gallery or something, you know?’

  ‘I remember you leaving,’ she said, finally lighting her smoke. ‘Before the end. Before we sat our exams.’

  She didn’t mention his dad. Didn’t need to. It was obvious from her face she was thinking about it, what an enormous fucking deal it had been at school when the old man had first got nicked.

  ‘You ever thought about going back? To school, I mean.’

  ‘Nah.’ He smiled. ‘Mr Hayden says I’m too old. And besides, I don’t think my uniform would fit any more.’

  ‘Hah.’ A proper smile. ‘I mean it. You’ve never been tempted to finish off getting your qualifications? Because the way I remember it, you were pretty smart yourself.’

  He shook his head. ‘Too busy with the club.’ He pictured himself cleaning the toilets. Her there with Snaresby during the raid. Him telling Sharon to fetch a cup of tea. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum panting around, not even acknowledging she was there.

  ‘All blokes, aren’t they?’ he said. ‘Your colleagues. All of them lots older than you, as well.’

  ‘That’s just how the Met is. For now . . .’

  ‘You sound like you’re planning on changing it. Good for you.’ Couldn’t do a worse job than those bastards do now. He kept the thought to himself.

  ‘I joined up as part of a fast-track graduate programme,’ she said. ‘Designed to rejuvenate and modernise the force. The pay’s good. Decent pension. Not bad in a recession like the one we walked into after school. And a lot more exciting than working in an art gallery, I can tell you.’

  Exciting. The way she said it . . . she’d obviously not exactly appreciated his guess at the kind of safe, arty career she’d been destined for after school. Fair enough too, judging from the way she’d just dealt with him up in Jack’s flat.

  She sipped her coffee. She was wearing a ring. A diamond set in gold. Not on her engagement finger, mind.

  ‘Nice rock,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Family heirloom?’ It didn’t look old enough, but he didn’t want to come straight out and ask if it was from a bloke.

  ‘No.’

  So she was with someone then. Hardly surprising, but different to how she’d been at school. She’d been single. Famously so. Loads of his mates had tried chatting her up and they’d all crashed and burned. Geek, they’d called her out of earshot, because of the rejections. Or frigid. Or lezza, because of the way she’d worn her hair, even shorter then than she did now. He’d never bought into any of that shit, though. He’d seen something different in her. From the way she’d worked. Her focus. She’d just wanted out of there. He’d been the same, working hard, secretly, behind his mates’ backs. Him and her . . . they’d not been so different back then.

  ‘And what about you?’ she said. ‘Are you with someone? You always had a girl on your arm.’

  He was surprised she’d even noticed. The way he remembered it, she’d never even looked at him. He stared back down at her ring.

  ‘So who’s the lucky fella?’

  ‘Nathan.’

  ‘Another cop?’

  ‘Banker. We met at uni. Durham. He was doing a post-grad in economics. I was reading history.’

  Durham Uni. One of the places Frankie tried hard not to think about. He’d gone there on an open day. A couple of months before everything had kicked off with his dad. If things had turned out different, he might even have studied there himself.

  Her expression hardened as she stubbed out her cigarette. She reached into her handbag.

  ‘Whoah.’ He raised his hands in mock surrender. ‘What else you got in there? A pistol? Pepper spray? A pack of Rottweilers?’

  Another smile. ‘I already said I’m sorry. For hurting you. If I’d known it was you, I wouldn’t have hit you. Well, not so hard, anyway.’

  ‘Try telling that to the kids I’ll never have.’

  She took out a pack of gum and slipped a piece into her mouth. She pushed her fringe back from her forehead, giving him the first full glimpse of her face in quite a while. More memories hit him of her at school. He’d noticed her right from year one. Her in the art room, the refectory, sometimes even glancing back at him from the passenger seat of her dad’s silver Volvo, as him and Jack had set out on the bike ride home on their busted up BMXs. Or maybe that had all just been in his head.

  ‘Listen, you’re not to go in there again, Frankie, all right? Not until you’re told. It’s still a crime scene.’

  ‘Sure.’ He said it, didn’t mean it.

  ‘I know you were probably just in there trying to make sense out of everything that’s—’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, suddenly flaring, suddenly remembering Jack and the noise he’d made on that roof, suddenly remembering why he was here, ‘that’s exactly what I was doing. Because right now, what you lot are doing – what you’re thinking – it doesn’t make any sense at all.’

  ‘I know this is difficult for you, Frankie. But you’ve got to trust us—’

  ‘Tell me something,’ he said, leaning forward. He was trying to keep his voice down, trying not to shout.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The blood . . .’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘If it got there because of Jack, because he was covered in it when he got home – like you say – then why did he leave it? Why didn’t he clear it up?’

  ‘Because, well, because he was high on something . . .’

  ‘You say that like it’s a question.’

  ‘No. It’s the only thing that—’

  ‘Makes sense?’

  ‘Yes. That’s logical. That fits. Your brother’s a known user, Frankie, you must know that. We found coke in his apartment . . . weed . . .’

  ‘Anything else?’ He meant the blue speed.

  ‘No.’

  No. Leaving Mo. Frankie would still be the only one looking into that.

  ‘Listen,’ Sharon said, ‘you’ve got to understand . . . the people your brother’s been hanging out with . . . the things they might have got him involved in . . . he could have just ended up out of his depth. He could have done this because he had no choice . . .’


  The same line Kind Regards had told him the police were peddling. Believable. Just. But not fucking true.

  ‘Or he could have not done it at all.’ Frankie forced himself to breathe in. ‘You don’t remember my little brother, do you?’ he said. ‘From school?’

  ‘No. I mean, I remember his face, but he was two years younger. I didn’t actually know him.’

  ‘Right, well let me tell you something about him. He was a show-off, OK? Right from the start. From when we were little. A clown. Funny, you know? An attention-seeker. And, yeah, sometimes he’d do stupid things to make people laugh. But he was a lovely kid too. He used to look out for other kids. Littler kids. He never bullied anyone. Any joke he ever made, he was always the butt of it himself. And he was a good brother too. All those shit years we had. After Mum. After Dad. We stuck close. He kept on smiling. No matter how shit it got. He kept me smiling too. Right up until recently. And even then . . . even if something inside him did change these last few months . . .’ He meant the drugs, the girls, what Mickey had said. ‘. . . no one changes that much, not from who he was as a kid into the kind of monster you want him to be now.’

  ‘It’s not what we want, Frankie. It’s just how it is.’

  ‘No. You want this case solved. And that’s what Jack does. That’s what that blood does. It solves it. As neat as can be. And that’s why it’s bullshit. Because it’s too fucking easy. Because it’s not fucking true.’

  ‘You’ve got to face facts,’ she said, counting them off her fingers. ‘We’ve got the cctv of him driving to the house . . .’

  ‘No. You’ve got footage of someone driving his car, someone who I’m telling you isn’t him.’

  ‘. . . we’ve got the blood all over him and all over his flat . . . and no, we can’t prove why he did it, but I promise you this, Frankie: we will.’

  ‘If he was so wasted when he got back from killing Susan Tilley like you say, then how come he didn’t get blood smeared all over the rest of the flat too? Why just the bedroom?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Because that’s true, isn’t it?’ It was just a hunch, but he knew already he was right. ‘None of your lot cleared it up, did they? Blood in the hallway, or the kitchen or the living room? Because there wasn’t any there. And I bet there wasn’t even any on the front door handle, was there?’

  ‘No, but he could have wiped whatever was on the front door handle off. Or started cleaning up the rest of the flat, but then crashed out. They found a bucket in the bathroom. Bottles of bleach. Traces of blood in the drain.’

  ‘Have you ever got high, Sharon? I don’t mean the odd cheeky drag of a joint at a party. I’m talking totally off your fucking head on class As?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, let me tell you something. If you ever do, I can guarantee you this: the last fucking thing you’re gonna want to do is go straight to bed and sleep.’

  She broke eye contact with him. But it was too late. He’d already seen the flash of alarm – of doubt – in her eyes.

  Silence. He let it run.

  ‘There was blood on the front door,’ she finally said. ‘But only on the inside handle . . .’

  Frankie sneered, couldn’t help it. ‘Which could have got there in the morning,’ he said. ‘On his way out. When he was leaving, when he was running. Not the night before, not on his way in.’

  ‘You really don’t believe he did it, do you?’

  ‘I think he’s been set up.’

  ‘But how?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. Not how, or why. But you know what?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I know there’s a part of you that thinks the same, that thinks this case isn’t quite so open and shut as you claim. I think that’s what you were doing coming back here tonight. On your own. In the dark. Without backup. Without Snaresby and whoever else it is out there who wants this all tied up in a neat little bundle, with my little brother taking the rap.’

  He remembered the way Snaresby had patronised her and the anger that had blazed in her eyes when he had. He remembered too what Kind Regards had said, about Snaresby once being friends with his parents, before he became a cop. He remembered the look on the old man’s face when he’d told him it was Snaresby who was bossing this case.

  ‘Yeah, Snaresby,’ he said, ‘you don’t like him any more than I do.’

  She said nothing.

  ‘You know damn well he made up his mind about my brother being guilty the second he heard that he’d run . . . regardless of why he might have . . . or who might have made him.’

  Her jaw clenched. ‘I don’t know that at all. And neither do you.’ She stood up. ‘I knew this was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have come here. We shouldn’t be talking. Not about the case. And not about my boss.’ She stared at him, her eyes dark with anger. ‘But I tell you this, Frankie: no matter what you think about Snaresby, or cops in general, I’m not one of the bad guys. I’m just trying to do my job. I’m just trying to do the right thing.’

  ‘Wait,’ he said.

  But she didn’t. She headed for the door. He hurried after her, catching her up on the pavement outside.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, grabbing her arm.

  She stared down at it until he let go.

  ‘I didn’t mean all cops were bent,’ he said, ‘or that you were bent, or shit at your job. It’s just . . . I do mean what I said, about him, about Jack not having done it . . . about there being more to all this than meets the eye.’

  ‘And I meant what I said about us not talking about this any more.’

  ‘And we won’t.’

  Try that and he knew she’d never speak to him again. And he didn’t want that. Because he believed her. She really wasn’t like those other bastards. She really did give a shit.

  ‘No more talk about the case. I promise. But, here . . .’ he waved down a taxi ‘. . . let me at least get you a cab. To say thanks, for the coffee, and for not calling me in. Unless you drove here?’

  ‘No. But I’ll pay my own way, thanks,’ she said, getting in.

  She slammed the door and said something to the driver. Her window buzzed down and she reached out, handing him a business card.

  ‘I’m not saying that you should,’ she said. ‘In fact, I’m telling you that you shouldn’t. But if you do find anything out, you let me know.’

  She didn’t wait for an answer, just turned and nodded at the driver. Then the cab pulled away and she was gone.

  17

  The pink neon Ambassador Club sign fifty yards ahead was looking well blurry by the time Frankie spotted it. Those last two Jack Daniels in the Pillars of Hercules might have been a mistake. Shit, he wished he was already in bed. Asleep.

  His head was hurting from too much thinking. He had a bad case of Sharon Granger on his mind. Kept picturing her driving off in that cab. She hadn’t looked back, not like he remembered her doing at school. Meaning what? That was it? He’d probably never see her again?

  After she’d gone, he’d walked back down the road to Jack’s building. Her saying she hadn’t driven there had left him wondering again what she’d been doing going back there in the dark on her own. When he’d asked her in the caff, she’d not answered him, had she? But she’d not denied either that she hadn’t got doubts.

  He’d also been left wondering, if she hadn’t driven there, then who the fuck had been in that car opposite? He’d gone looking, but it had already vanished by the time he’d got there. There’d been ten cigarette butts in the gutter next to the space where he’d seen it parked. Like whoever had been in it had been waiting there for hours.

  ‘Sorry, mate,’ he half-said, half-slurred, nearly tripping over some homeless guy’s feet.

  A muffled response came from the nest of cardboard and blankets. Frankie walked on, then thought better of it. Digging into his pocket, he backed up and knelt down.

  ‘Here,’ he said, proffering a tenner.

  A pale, skinny hand reached out from beneath a grey bl
anket and took the cash. More muffled words. Could have been thanks or piss off. Frankie glimpsed a pale face peeping out at him from a black hoodie. A bloke or a bird? Hard to tell. Young, though. Fucking tragically so.

  ‘I got a club,’ Frankie said. ‘The Ambassador. See? Just down the road from here. You ever need somewhere to shelter, you know, if it’s pissing down or whatever . . . then you just come and knock, all right?’

  No reply. The eyes watched him in silence.

  ‘All right, mate. You go well.’ Frankie patted the pile of blankets goodbye, before getting unsteadily to his feet.

  Shit, he was pissed. But fuck it. He was nearly home. Up ahead the club’s glowing sign pointed out into the street and he smiled, remembering Vegas, and that first time, way back, when he’d gone there with his folks. Must have been ’82, ’83. Before his mum and dad had split. Just before the old man had started running the club.

  They’d come into a shitload of money somehow. Some big property deal the old man had helped out on. It was the first time in their lives they’d been properly flush. There’d been no more cheap hop-on-a-train-at-the-drop-of-a-hat day trips down to Skeggie and Brighton. The family James had started tootling off on posh European ‘City Breaks’ instead, to Barcelona, Paris and Rome. And further afield. The States. New York and Vegas.

  Good times. And the holidays weren’t the only changes Frankie remembered. His mum had stopped worrying about how much water they used in the bath and had started buying Heinz and Smirnoff, instead of Tesco’s and Asda’s own brands. The old man had ditched his grubby jeans and T-shirts, for Paul Smith, Ben Sherman and Ray-Bans. He’d taken out the lease on the Ambassador Club too. For ‘a bit of fun’. Frankie remembered the phrase. Like it was just a lark, a whim, something he was doing just because he could.

  Frankie’s mum had changed too. Always beautiful, the kind of natural stunner you could have dressed in rags and she’d still have drawn looks, she’d turned into a proper show-stopper. All designer clothes and hairdos. He remembered other geezers, geezers who weren’t his dad, really noticing her. And he remembered the old man noticing them. Even then he’d known that things wouldn’t fucking last.