Killer Read online

  KILLER

  James Pattinson

  © James Pattinson 1989

  James Pattinson has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1989 by Robert Hale Limited.

  This edition published in 2019 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  ONE: So Long, Dead Man

  TWO: Punks

  THREE: Decision

  FOUR: All In Good Time

  FIVE: Pick-Up

  SIX: Promise

  SEVEN: Odd

  EIGHT: Cache

  NINE: Old Pal

  TEN: New Set-Up

  ELEVEN: Mr G

  TWELVE: According to Plan

  THIRTEEN: The Big Fish

  FOURTEEN: Too Smart

  FIFTEEN: Not in Favour

  SIXTEEN: Bait

  SEVENTEEN: Not Smart Enough

  EIGHTEEN: Lamb to the Slaughter

  NINETEEN: Clean Slate

  ONE

  So Long, Dead Man

  Roy Denver’s car was held up in a traffic block in the approaches to Seaport’s Haig Street Station when a man opened the door on the nearside and slipped into the passenger seat beside him.

  ‘Hey!’ Denver said. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ But then he took a closer look at the man and saw who it was who was sitting there and grinning at him.

  ‘Remember me, Inspector?’

  Denver remembered him; the face was unforgettable and he had seen enough of it a few years back to ensure that it would stay in his memory. More than enough, in fact.

  ‘Duggie Heeney!’

  ‘Right in one.’ Heeney grinned again, but it was a vicious grin and did nothing to make the features more attractive. Not to Denver.

  Yet he had to admit that there were people who might have a different opinion from his regarding Heeney’s looks; women especially. That black hair, those slightly hollow cheeks, that long thin nose and the pointed chin, that dark shadow of stubble which could hardly be called a beard but was a kind of halfway stage between the shaven and the hirsute; all this might have its enchantment for the female of the species, or at least for some.

  But Denver had looked into the hooded eyes and seen the glint of something that turned his stomach; a hint of madness perhaps; of criminal and even homicidal madness. And whatever the headshrinkers might say, in his estimation Heeney rated as a nut-case, and a dangerous one at that.

  ‘So they let you out?’

  ‘Had to, didn’t they? Done my time, less remission for good behaviour and all that crap.’

  ‘So you behaved yourself while you were inside?’

  ‘Betcher sweet life, I did. I’m not stupid.’

  ‘Stupid enough to get yourself put there in the first place.’

  The shaft went home; Denver could tell it had. Heeney was still smiling, but the venom in him was only thinly disguised by this outward show. He spoke sarcastically.

  ‘Let’s put it another way. Let’s say it was you as was a bit too clever for me, Inspector.’

  ‘Maybe it was at that,’ Denver said. ‘But you don’t have to call me inspector. I’m not with the Force any more.’

  Heeney showed no surprise. ‘Ah, so I heard. What happened? Did they kick you out? Find you was on the take, doin’ a bit of the old graft on the side or something?’

  Denver resisted the temptation to give Heeney a bunch of knuckles in the teeth and got the blue Ford Sierra moving with the traffic that had begun to flow again.

  ‘No, nothing like that. I left of my own free will.’

  He was still not altogether certain it had been a wise decision. Thirty-four years old and a detective inspector, he might have looked forward to a successful career in the Seaport police. Some people would have said that he had thrown away an assured future for no good reason; and maybe they would have been right. But to his way of thinking there had been reasons enough; for some time he had been unsettled; maybe he was too independent, too willing to bend the rules instead of going strictly by the book. It had got him into trouble with his superiors on more than one occasion and earned him a few raps over the knuckles. There had been friction with colleagues, too; back-biting and a lack of co-operation in certain quarters; so that, what with one thing and another, he had decided to call it a day while he was still young enough to make a fresh start.

  He had talked it over with Valerie, and she had agreed that if that was the way he felt it was the best thing to do. She was certainly not going to urge him to stay on in a job he had come to dislike.

  ‘Life’s too short for that, Roy. We’ve got to make the most of it while we can.’

  He was grateful for her support, though it was not unexpected; she was a very understanding person, as well as being lovelier than any other woman he knew.

  He had made no immediate attempt to find another job; they were pretty hard to get anyway. Instead, he set up in business as a security consultant and became a free-lance agent for a firm which fitted window-locks, burglar-alarms and similar devices for outwitting the criminal fraternity. His income was uncertain and never amounted to what he had been earning as a detective inspector, but he was his own boss and nobody was looking over his shoulder and telling him what to do. He had no regrets. If the security caper failed to come up to expectations he would try some other line; there would surely be something he could turn his hand to, and he had no doubt that he would always be able to make a decent living in one way or another.

  ‘So,’ Heeney said, ‘you’re not a copper any more; just an ordinary private citizen like me and the next man.’

  ‘No,’ Denver said. ‘Never like you. Never in a million years. You’re dirt.’

  He was giving all his attention to his driving and did not observe the reaction of his passenger to this expression of contempt. Heeney’s face darkened and he shot a look at Denver which did nothing to disguise the bitter hatred he felt for the ex-policeman. He had a struggle to control himself, because he felt an almost irresistible impulse to attack the man; and if he had had a knife he might have used it there and then and to hell with the consequences. So maybe it was as well that he was unarmed, because this was neither the time nor the place for anything of that kind. And there was no hurry; it could wait. Patience! That was all that was needed. The time would come.

  So he took a grip on himself and kept his hands in his pockets, as though only in that way could he be certain that they would not act of their own volition and spoil everything by their impetuosity. And when he spoke it was softly, keeping the rancour out of his voice and merely giving it a faintly injured tone, as though he had been unjustly slandered.

  ‘You didn’t oughter say that, Mr Denver. It’s an insult, you know, a diabolical liberty.’

  ‘It’s the truth,’ Denver said. ‘You’re a shit. Scum like you pollute everything they touch. You’re like a crawling slug leaving a slimy trail wherever you go.’

  ‘Now, now, Mr Denver!’ Heeney said; and try to suppress it as he might, a note of menace had crept into his voice, though he still spoke softly. ‘You should mind what you’re saying. You could get yourself into trouble, you know, real trouble.’

  Denver shot a contemptuous glance at him. ‘That wouldn’t be a threat, would it?’

  ‘A threat! Oh, no. I wouldn’t presume to threaten a man like you. Not an insignificant person like me; you know that.’ Heeney spoke with a thinly veiled sneer, overdoing the humility. ‘It was just a word of advice.’

  ‘You advising me! Now that really is something for the book.’

  ‘No need to make such a big thing of it, Mr D. You think you don’t need no advice?’

  ‘Not from you.’

  ‘Well, have it your
own way. Whatcher bin doing since you left the coppers?’

  ‘This and that.’

  ‘And it’s a living?’

  ‘I get by. What are you aiming to do now you’re out?’

  ‘Now that’s a question,’ Heeney said. ‘There’s a load of jobs what’ve had to wait while my movements have been hampered, as you might say; jobs I couldn’t get stuck into on account of little things like bolts and bars and high brick walls. You know what it’s like to be shut up and not able to get out, Mr D?’

  ‘Can’t say I’ve ever had the experience,’ Denver admitted. ‘But I can imagine.’

  ‘No, you can’t. Nobody can. You have to take it first-hand to really know. It grinds you down; the monotony, the frustration, the sodding smell of it. You get to thinking about all sorts of things. Oh yes, you do a lot of thinking inside. But how would you know?’

  ‘Well, there’s no use whining. You had it coming to you. You should’ve kept your nose clean.’

  ‘You going to read me a lecture on the evils of being a bad boy?’

  ‘No,’ Denver said. ‘Because I know it would be a waste of time. You’re set in your nasty little ways and nothing’s going to alter you now.’

  ‘And you aren’t even going to try? I’m surprised at you, a good upright citizen like you.’

  Denver ignored the sarcasm. ‘Why should I? It’s not my pigeon; not any more it isn’t. I’ve finished with having to bother myself with villains like you.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so bloody sure about that if I was you,’ Heeney said softly.

  Again Denver shot a swift questioning glance at him. They had left Haig Street now and were going up the slope of Exeter Street where the traffic was less congested. He had not asked Heeney where he wanted to go; the man had got into the car uninvited and he was free to get out of it again whenever he wished; but Denver had no intention of going out of his way to please his passenger.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing.’

  Denver did not believe him. Heeney was a mean bastard and he probably reckoned he had a score to settle, because he, Denver, was the man who had arrested him and had been instrumental in getting him sent to prison. So maybe he had something worked out in his warped little mind, something that entailed no kind of good for the ex-inspector.

  ‘If you’re thinking of getting your own back on me, you’d better forget it. You’ll only be making more trouble for yourself.’

  ‘And it don’t worry you?’

  Denver spoke scornfully. ‘The day I start worrying about reprisals from garbage like you, Duggie, I’ll be ready to hand in my chips.’ He was not frightened by Heeney’s vague hints of retribution; it was just talk; the man would do nothing.

  And yet could he really be so certain of that? Might it not be prudent to take Heeney’s words a little more seriously? In that piece of business for which he and three other men had been put away in Parkways Prison he had acted very savagely in resisting arrest and had inflicted severe injuries on two police officers. So it would be foolish to imagine that Heeney was at all averse to using violence when he felt inclined to do so; his past record refuted any such idea. Given suitable conditions, like a deserted alleyway on a dark night, he might indeed try something; a stealthy attack from behind would be just his kind of operation.

  Well, then, this being so, it would be expedient to ensure that the bastard was offered no such opportunity. He would be on his guard; and if Heeney was indeed planning anything it had been foolish to hand out a warning to his intended victim. But perhaps after all it was nothing but bluff, the purpose being to make Denver uneasy, even fearful. Perhaps he was laughing up his sleeve to think how his clever little ploy was going to put the other man’s nerves on edge and give him sleepless nights wondering where and when the blow might fall.

  ‘It won’t work, you know, Duggie.’

  ‘What won’t, Mr D?’

  ‘This little scheme of yours to get me running scared. We both know you haven’t the guts to get yourself tangled with me.’

  ‘Of course we do, Mr D. No need for a man like you to worry about dirt like me. You said it yourself; I’m a shit. Who’d be afraid of a shit?’

  Denver detected mockery in Heeney’s words, but he ignored it. ‘Where have you been living since you came out?’

  ‘With my old ma. Where else would I go?’

  Denver could think of a lot of alternatives, but he did not say so. ‘She’s moved since you went inside, hasn’t she?’

  ‘That’s right. She’s got a luxury apartment now. A little bit of heaven on earth.’

  Heeney was being sarcastic again. Denver knew that there was nothing heavenly about Mrs Heeney’s present quarters except perhaps their height above the ground. She occupied a sixth floor council flat in one of those disastrous high-rise concrete blocks that had quickly deteriorated into the new perpendicular slums.

  They were going up Calthorpe Hill now, past the old weathered buildings of the university. It was not on the way to Mrs Heeney’s place.

  ‘Where do you want me to drop you off?’ Denver asked.

  ‘Anywhere,’ Heeney said. ‘I only came along for the ride.’

  ‘Well, don’t make a habit of it, that’s all.’

  ‘You mean you don’t enjoy my company?’ Heeney asked in mock surprise, giving a lopsided grin. ‘And there was me thinking you was loving our little heart-to-heart.’

  ‘The only thing I really love about you,’ Denver said, ‘is your absence.’ He pulled the car to a halt by the kerb. ‘Here’s where we say goodbye.’

  Heeney opened the door and got out. He stood with one hand on the door looking in at Denver. ‘Not goodbye, Mr D. Just aw-revaw. We’ll meet again.’

  ‘I hope not. You’re a bastard, Duggie. For my money the judge was too lenient with you; he should have given you double the sentence. Personally, I’d have sent you down for life.’

  ‘Good for you,’ Heeney said. He slammed the door with a sudden flick of the hand, as though Denver’s parting words had touched him on the raw and he was giving vent to some of the anger he had kept bottled up. ‘Good for you, Mr Bloody Righteous.’

  Denver cast one glance back at him as he took the car away. Heeney was standing on the kerb, not moving. He was wearing a dirty white T-shirt, a black leather jacket, faded blue jeans and a pair of well-worn training shoes. Denver thought he looked like a starving wolf. And maybe he was just as dangerous.

  He could not hear what Heeney was saying as he watched the blue Sierra moving away up the hill; which was perhaps as well, since it might have disturbed him.

  Heeney spoke through clenched teeth in a kind of low growl, so that his words would have been inaudible at a distance of more than a few feet, and there was no one close enough to hear him.

  ‘So long to you, Mr D,’ he said, ‘until we meet again. So long, dead man!’

  TWO

  Punks

  Oblivious of this parting shot from his recent passenger, Denver drove on and eventually came to the house where he lived and from which base he carried on his security business.

  There was nothing very impressive about it; it was situated in one of the older residential districts which had been developed by speculative builders in the nineteen twenties and thirties. It was rather dilapidated and the garden had been allowed to run riot, but in the south of England it would probably have had an asking price of eighty thousand pounds or so. In this area where the recession had depressed property values such residences could be picked up for a great deal less.

  He and Valerie had pooled their resources and bought it when they had decided some years ago that it would be a good idea to start living together. Complications might set in if they ever split up, but Denver hoped it would never come to that because he felt sure there was no other woman who could adequately have taken her place in his scheme of things. Nevertheless, she was quite a bit younger than he was, and in a few more years who could tell what the
prospect might look like from her point of view? So perhaps …

  But having progressed so far along this particular road of speculation he always pulled himself up pretty sharply, because there was no sense in carrying further an exercise which could lead to no positive conclusion and might simply result in a feeling of deep depression.

  He parked the Sierra on the gravel that had become compacted with grass and weeds and let himself into the house by the front door, which was sheltered from the weather by a small porch. Valerie was in the kitchen preparing an evening meal, and she paused in this occupation to give him a welcoming kiss.

  ‘You’ve got flour on your nose,’ Denver said.

  ‘It developed an itch and I had to scratch it. Don’t let it bother you.’

  There was flour on her hands also; she had kept them away from him during the kiss. She was wearing a striped cook’s apron which was looped round her neck and tied in a large bow at the waist. He thought it gave her an attractively domestic appearance.

  ‘It doesn’t bother me,’ he said. ‘I rather like it. So the Whizzkid didn’t keep you working late.’

  ‘Not today. He had to get away early himself.’

  The Whizzkid’s real name was Kenneth Roper, and Miss Valerie West was his private secretary. Denver had given him, without his knowledge, the nickname, perhaps with some secret feeling of envy, because it could not be denied that Roper was a real go-getter. At the age of little more than thirty he was already a millionaire and still on the way up. The story was – and it could have been true – that he had started Micro Plastics with a capital of just one thousand pounds and in less than ten years had built it up into a successful industry with a multi-million pound turnover and a work force of some four hundred employees.

  And there could be no doubt that Roper was good for Seaport: with the shipping trade a mere shadow of what it had once been and dozens of old factories closed down, bright new industries like Micro Plastics, which could compete with and even beat the competition from the Far East, were just what the City Fathers were praying for. If only there had been a few more Ken Ropers around the prospect for those who swelled the dole queues and crowded the offices of the DHSS might have been far rosier.