The Cover Up: A gripping crime thriller for 2018

Gloria filed out into the cold vestibule with the other worshippers, buffeted along by her ever-thankful trafficked workers, looking like jewel-coloured parrots in their Nigerian wraps and skirts.

‘Hello, Aunty Gloria! Blessings to you!’

‘Coming for cake, Aunty G?’

‘Loving your dress, Mrs Gloria!’

Kind words from her cleaners. At least somebody loved her, even if their love had been bought by offering them slave labour and free cramped living conditions as an alternative to prostitution in Benin City or destitution in the DRC.

‘Greetings and blessings, ladies!’ Gloria could hear that her voice was tremulous. It didn’t do to appear weak in front of her employees. She opted not to say anything more.

But her legs almost buckled with adrenalin as she caught sight of the pastor’s handsome face in amongst the crowd. Clyde, who owned the soul food takeout, was shaking his hand by the large, arched doorway. Was Pastor alone? No. Clyde stepped aside to reveal the short, squat Kitty Fried Chicken by the pastor’s side. Fleetingly, Gloria wondered if there was a passage in the Bible that would excuse ramming a ricin patty into Kitty’s fat face at the next church mingle.

She muttered under her breath. ‘Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weak say, “I am a warrior!” If it’s good enough for Joel, it’s good enough for me.’

By the time Gloria had reached the vestibule to be thanked by the pastor, her anger had started to morph into sadness. She could see the lumpy bad skin of Kitty’s cheeks, yet still the pastor had his arm around her. Rubbing her shoulder encouragingly, as the churchgoers heaped praise on her for her soulful singing.

Stepping forwards, Gloria held her hand out to the handsome man who had taken up residence in her heart with his flirtation and mixed messages. My, how he looked like Luther Vandross in his thin days. Even now, he caused the butterflies in her stomach to take flight. But as this heavenly man reached out to reciprocate her greeting, Gloria realised the pastor was not looking into her eyes at all. His radiant smile was not for her. She followed his gaze, glancing over her shoulder, whereupon it dawned on her that he was ogling fresh meat. Pat Nicholas’ girl, Kendra. Wearing a miniskirt and stilettos, though she couldn’t have been more than seventeen.

Gloria gripped the pastor’s hand so tightly, he had no option but to make eye contact with her, finally. In a strong voice, she said, ‘I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith – 2 Timothy 4:7,’ and walked briskly out onto the street, before he had chance to see her first tear fall.

Making haste along the high street of Parson’s Croft before the affable gang of illicit cleaners had the chance to sweep her up into their ranks and into the cake shop, as was the usual post-church arrangement, Gloria eventually came to a halt outside the Western Union money shop. She looked around the busy, scruffy street through blurred, watery eyes. Disoriented by the traffic that whipped past and the group of youths that were pushing by her, five abreast, one doing wheelies on his mountain bike on the pavement. Ordinarily, she’d have shouted after him to get on the road where he belonged. But now …

‘Are you okay, Mrs Bell?’ one of the boys asked her. ‘Are you crying?’

Gloria shook her head vociferously, treating the lad to a hard stare. Who was he? She didn’t recognise him. He looked like a younger Leviticus. She didn’t need sympathy from a little toerag like him. ‘Conjunctivitis,’ she said, aggressively wiping the tears away with the back of her hand. Clutching her coat close and her handbag closer. ‘And tell your mate to get off his bike. Pavements are for pedestrians.’

Where had she left her Mazda? There it was, on Samuel Street. Had she had any breakfast? She couldn’t remember. Get yourself together, Gloria Bell, she chided herself. Right, where am I going? Where are my car keys? She turned over the engine. Why has Jesus forsaken me and made a barren wasteland of my heart yet again?

Driving away from the city, she found herself bypassing the quiet cul-de-sac on which she was living with her son and grandson. She continued on through the shower of falling golden leaves to Bramshott. Pulled up outside the high gates of Sheila’s sprawling house, where she spotted the dogged detective, Ellis James, ensconced on the opposite side of the road in his foetid Ford – a sinner’s vehicle, if ever there was one. He was clearly staking out the place. She paid no heed to the white van that was parked yet again outside the neighbour’s pile.

‘Let me in,’ she shouted through the intercom through tears that simply wouldn’t let up.

‘Hey! Hey! What’s all this for?’ Sheila asked, ushering her through to the kitchen, draping a comforting arm around her shoulders.

Unable to stem the flow of heartbreak, Gloria sobbed openly, stumbling across the marble floor and throwing herself onto a bar stool.

‘I’ll put the kettle on and rustle up some cheese toasties,’ Conky said, donning an apron as though he wasn’t a murdering henchman at all but rather some Northern Irish alternative to Paul Hollywood. He wasn’t wearing his hairpiece or sunglasses today. If anything, his kindness made Gloria sob harder. ‘Let you ladies talk. Don’t mind me.’ He chuckled.

Five minutes and half a kitchen roll later, the tears were replaced by hiccoughs and fatigue. Running her work-worn fingers along the gleaming granite worktop of the island, Gloria sighed heavily. Turned to Sheila. ‘I give up, Sheila. The pastor, I mean. He’s a cad. Nothing but a broken, unhappy man with bad breath and an eye for the ladies.’

Sheila’s carefully plucked brows furrowed. She squeezed Gloria’s hand in solidarity. ‘You’ll get over it. Honest.’

Conky set a coffee down before her on a coaster, leaning in to offer her the dubious wisdom and sincerity behind those bulbous thyroid eyes. ‘You’ve got to find someone new, Gloria. Someone better. Sure, I don’t know what you saw in some attention-seeking Bible-basher anyway!’

‘Man shall not live by bread alone, Conky, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God – Matthew 4:4.’ She tried to treat him to a disapproving scowl but hadn’t the energy to screw her features into the correct shape.

‘Aye. Oh, well,’ he simply said. ‘Some things just aren’t meant to be.’

Feeling her resolve weaken and her lip tremble, Gloria whispered. ‘He was the love of my life. I’ll never be able to rid myself of these feelings. I know it.’

‘Bullshit!’ Sheila said, smiling encouragingly. Glancing at the clock. Clearly, her sisterly support was on a time limit. How very Sheila. ‘You’re a fighter and a survivor, Gloria Bell. A successful entrepreneur! You’re worth more.’

Conky set a plate full of perfect golden cheese toasties onto the worktop. Fidgeting at their side, as though he were waiting to hatch some nugget of manly advice. Sure enough …

‘You have to push your feelings aside for this eejit and start again, Gloria,’ he said, waving a well-meaning spatula in her direction. ‘Don’t make a fool of yourself over a man that has the glad eye for every bit of skirt that comes his way.’

At her side, Sheila suddenly started to clap her hands like an excited seal. She encircled Gloria’s wrist in a cage made from those shellac talons. ‘You, my dear, are going speed-dating!’

‘What?’ Gloria said, biting into a triangle of toastie. Noticing Sheila’s plate remained empty.

‘You’ll be a guinea pig for our first speed-dating night!’

‘Beezer!’ Conky said, grinning. ‘Sure, you’ll find yourself a nice man that way. An emotionally available man, for a start.’

‘I am not going speed-dating!’ Gloria slapped her snack onto her plate in disgust.

‘Yes you bloody well are,’ Sheila said. All smiles. Eye on the clock. ‘Now, get your skates on with that cuppa because I’ve got a meeting with a Brummie who reckons he’s got the answer to all my problems.’

Chapter 3

Conky

‘Whereabouts are we meeting this Nigel Bancroft?’ Conky asked, shoving his handgun further into his waistband, turning his back to the grey-faced shoppers in the Lowry Centre’s multi-storey car park so that they couldn’t see what he was about. The cold metal dug uncomfortably into the overhang of his burgeoning belly. Sheila’s cooking was too good. He prayed he wouldn’t inadvertently shoot his own testicles off.

‘Near the bridge,’ Sheila said, slamming the car door. ‘Just by the water’s edge. He didn’t want anyone earwigging.’ She examined her reflection in the Panamera’s gleaming tinted window. Smoothed the tresses of her hair. Bared her white teeth at him across the roof of the car. ‘Have I got lipstick on my teeth?’

Peering over his Ray-Bans, Conky smiled. Continually surprised that Sheila should ever question her own beauty.

‘Those cherries fairly do enclose

Of orient pearl a double row,

Which when her lovely laughter shows,

They look like rosebuds fill’d with snow.’

He finished his recital with a grin, ignoring the sniggers from two teenaged girls who passed by on their way to the lifts.

Sheila frowned at him uncertainly. Touching her incisors with her index finger. ‘What?’

‘It’s a poem from the seventeenth century.’

‘So, have I got lippy on my teeth?’

‘No, darling. You’re grand.’ He touched his own carefully arranged hair ensemble, hoping that the wind wouldn’t be blowing stiffly along the waterway. It wouldn’t do to show weakness to a man like Nigel Bancroft.

Silence in the lift with the genuine punters hoping to nab a bargain in the M&S clearance section. Conky reached out in the squash of the stuffed metal box for Sheila’s hand but was disappointed. Her stern expression was all business. She clutched her Hermès handbag, holding it against her stomach as though it provided a force field protecting her from the unwashed mortals and whatever was to come.

He noticed people staring up at him as the lift travelled downwards; turning away abruptly as they suspected they had just made eye contact with the ominous-looking wall of man, clad all in black like a funeral director. They were lucky he was wearing sunglasses. Poor wee bastards would have a heart attack if he treated them to The Eyes.

‘Come on. We’re late,’ Sheila said, dragging him through the depressing upper mall of the shopping centre, where half the units were still unoccupied, post-recession.

She took a step onto the escalator down, checking her watch again. Her shoulders were so hunched up inside her cashmere coat, Conky was tempted to reach down and smooth them out.

‘He can fuck away off. Make him wait!’ he said, catching the reflection of the two of them standing together in a shopfront window. Still disbelieving that this doll was his lover. Paddy O’Brien would be spinning in his grave. But he now knew the truth of how Paddy had treated his wife behind closed doors. Screw him, the wife-beating bastard.

‘Tell me again what you found out about this Bancroft?’ She fixed him with those cobalt blue eyes, the crow’s feet crinkling around them like an elegant, ageing frame around crisp, perfectly composed photography.

Marching past the brightly lit shops to the exit, he explained. ‘Nigel Bancroft runs Birmingham, basically. He’s big in commercial property. He owns a chain of restaurants – tapas, burgers, Tex-Mex: places where you can eat and drink. Backs small business start-ups. But naturally, that’s all bullshit.’

Outside in the gusting wind, Sheila click-clacked ahead of him to the stone stairs that led down to the Lowry Theatre. The giant silver structure, comprising several bold shapes lumped together, always put Conky in mind of the old metal storage tins that knocked around the kitchen of his childhood home, into which his Mammy had stashed food and cash for the bills, lest his father fritter it away down the bookies.

Today, as with most other days in Manchester, the cloud cover was heavy, lending the deserted paved plaza and the hulking grey structure that sat beside it an oppressive Soviet air.

Sheila was struggling on the steps in those shoes.

‘Give me your hand?’ he offered.

‘I’m fine. I’m not a cripple.’

She shooed him away, but even after months as a couple, it felt more like he’d taken a hefty right hook.

Approaching the bridge by the dull grey-brown snake of the River Irwell, he spotted an average-sized man, standing by the rail. Expensively dressed, the man wore a camel overcoat with a grey suit underneath. A big bruiser with close-cropped hair, standing some ten feet away, clad in dark jeans and a leather donkey jacket. Muscle. More muscle – a big black guy with dreads, wearing a parka – standing further down. The well-dressed man glanced towards them, smiling expansively at Sheila. Conky was careful to make a show of touching the place where the gun bulged, not quite hidden beneath the fabric of his coat.

‘Wait here,’ Sheila said, squeezing his arm but not taking her eyes from the man.

‘No. I’m coming with you. You’re exposed.’

Sheila shot him a narrow-eyed glance. Lips thinned to a line. ‘You’re not the only one who’s packing, Conky. I’m not an amateur.’ Her features softened. ‘At least hang back a bit. Give us a bit of distance, yeah?’

Conky halted. Exhaled heavily, chewing over his lover’s stubborn streak like a piece of unpalatable gristle.

‘Nigel?’ Sheila asked, marching forwards with her hand held out.

‘Sheila O’Brien,’ Bancroft said, flashing a dazzling dentist’s-dream smile that almost lit up the dank quayside scene. He clasped Sheila’s hand between his, leaning attentively in for an air kiss on both cheeks, which Sheila reciprocated.

Bastard. Couldn’t have been more than thirty-five, unless he’d had work done. Conky mused that he had the kind of face you saw on tired catalogue models. Starting to go at the jawline and underneath the eyes. A vain man, for sure with that fecking hair gel in his hair. A wedding ring on his finger though. Not that that ever stopped men like Nigel Bancroft. His words were being whipped away by a fickle breeze. What was he saying, with that grin plastered all over his nipped-and-tucked bake? There sure as hell was a lot of laughing going on.

Conky moved a little closer so that he was within earshot of the two once more.

‘You’re even more beautiful than they say,’ Bancroft said in that Brummie accent of his.

‘Who says that then?’ There was a sceptical edge to Sheila’s voice, despite the coquettish giggle.

‘The great and the good of the criminal underworld, Sheila. You and I mix in the same esteemed circles, after all.’

It sounded like the prick had rehearsed his lines. Ma gavte la nata, Conky said to himself, musing on the classic line delivered by Jacopo Belbo in Foucault’s Pendulum. Take the cork out of his arse and let some of that hot air out. Prick.

The two started to walk towards the footbridge that spanned the river. Conky followed, straining to catch their conversation.

‘I can tell you now,’ Bancroft said, ‘when it’s just between lads, the hardest nuts from Portsmouth to Glasgow all say they admire your assets, and I’m not just talking what you’ve inherited from Paddy.’ Wink.

Sheila came to a halt, clutching her bag close. ‘Flattery’s all very well, Nigel, but I can’t bank it, and there’s more to me than a pair of tits, son.’ The mirth had evaporated from her voice, leaving only a sour residue behind, Conky noted with some satisfaction. ‘Now what did you come up here to say?’

‘I hear you’re looking to offload your traditional business interests to a third party.’

‘Who the bloody hell told you that?’ Sheila raised an eyebrow. ‘I certainly never told anyone that.’

Bancroft’s men had moved from their positions by the river’s guardrail and were now also trailing the couple. Conky studied them surreptitiously through the dark lenses of his Ray-Bans, checking for sudden movements. These tossers had been at Paddy’s funeral. Casting his mind back to some of the lesser-known mourners gathered at the back of the throng, he recalled the black feller. Those dreadlocks, tied in a fat ponytail and that acne scarring that covered his forehead and cheeks were a dead giveaway. He had been standing at the side of your Man-at-Burton Bancroft. And now they were in Manchester, thinking they could simply swoop down and pick over the O’Brien empire’s carcass.

‘Let’s just say, I’ve got my sources of reliable information,’ Bancroft told Sheila. ‘News travels fast in our world, and I can help you get on with the things that are more in your comfort zone.’

Conky noticed that the veins on the backs of Sheila’s hands were standing proud. She appeared taut from her feet to her face, like a gymnast holding her body before executing a finale on the beam.

She poked Bancroft in the shoulder. ‘You can take that shit-eating grin off your face for a start, mister.’ Taking a step towards him. Matching his height in those heels. ‘Now, first, I want to know which double-crossing little shit you’ve got working for me, earwigging and then mouthing off about my business. And second, cut the flirtatious crap and tell me what you’re proposing. South Manchester’s mine. All mine. I’m a businesswoman, Nigel. Not a bleeding hobbyist or the show pony you seem to be mistaking me for.’

Bancroft’s muscle marched towards her, puffing themselves up like peacocks, squaring for a fight over a hen.

Conky withdrew his weapon, pointing it at them but still keeping it for the most part concealed up his overcoat sleeve. ‘Back off, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Or you’ll have more holes in you than Emmental cheese, before you can shout croque-fucking-monsieur.’

The Midlander muscle looked to their boss for a signal.

Holding his hand aloft, Bancroft’s smile no longer reached his eyes. ‘Easy, lads. We’re just talking shop here, aren’t we, Sheila?’ He glanced at Conky’s gun, blinking too hard and fast. ‘No need for any nastiness. Call your dog off, will you?’ He turned his attention back to Sheila. His puffed-up ego seemed to have deflated somewhat, making that camel coat look a size too big.

‘Dog?’ Conky took a step towards him. ‘Catch yourself on, you cheeky wee bastard. You call me a dog again, I’ll show you the ferocity of my bite.’ He caught sight of Sheila’s steely glare and flinching jaw. Took a step back again and put the gun away. Satisfied that he had set his stall out for this posing ponce.

‘Now. Stop wasting my time, Mr Bancroft,’ Sheila said, checking her watch as though she had some more pressing engagement to attend. ‘I wanna know who fed you information about me and I want to hear your proposal. No dicking around.’

‘I’m not giving you my sources,’ Bancroft said, grinning like a bloody eejit again. ‘But I will say this: I’ll run your drugs, protection racket, any girls, gambling … whatever. All the tough stuff, I’ll run and give you fifteen per cent. I take all the risk. You just sit back and take the money.’ He opened his arms, raising them up as though he had just announced he had found a cure for cancer to a hospital ward full of the dying.

‘Fifteen?!’ Conky said, hoping the arsehole could hear the derision in his voice.

Sheila stalked towards Bancroft, pushing her face right up against his. ‘You’re taking the piss. Shall I tell you what you can do with your fifteen lousy per cent?’

Sheila dipped her slender hand into the handbag. Bancroft’s eyes widened as she pressed her gun into his gut.

Conky held his breath. Would she shoot?

‘You can stick your offer right up your jacksy,’ she said, seeming to grow even more in stature. ‘You’ve wasted my time. Getting me down here, just so you can wave your dick at me before you try to shaft me for my business?’

‘No, I haven’t!’ Bancroft said. ‘The offer’s in good faith.’

‘Feel that?’ Sheila said, pushing the snub nose down towards his abdomen. Still out of the eyeline of Bancroft’s henchmen, who hung back, too far away to hear this exchange, Conky calculated. ‘That’s my dick you can feel.’ She raised her eyebrows and widened her eyes like an excited child, boarding a ride at a fairground. ‘If you want me to shoot my load, carry on with the insults, pal. Because you’re insulting me right now, and my dick feels a romance explosion coming on that won’t end well for you.’

‘Twenty per cent, then,’ Bancroft’s skin had paled to a sickly yellow now. His eyes darted to and fro, as though he was desperate to alert his boys to the danger he faced.

Conky could see Sheila click the safety off. ‘There you go again with the insults. How about you tell me the name of the grassing little shit who seems to think my business is his business?’

‘Twenty-five. There. That’s my best offer, Sheila. Twenty-five per cent to run your drugs and protection and that.’

‘Raise your hands where I can see them,’ she said. ‘Any last words?’

‘All right! All right!’ Bancroft did as asked, shaking his head vociferously at his two men, as they moved in towards him, guns drawn, aimed at Sheila and Conky. ‘Just mull it over, will you? It’s good business sense, and you know it. Please.’

Appraising the scene with the swift eyes of a militia man, Conky noted the innocent passers-by some hundred metres away. Made a split-second decision as to whether he could take out these two lumps and their bossman before the situation got out of hand. The specially manufactured prisms in the lenses of his Ray-Bans boosted his weak thyroid-eyes back to better than twenty-twenty vision. He could take them out, all right.

‘Put your guns away, lads,’ Bancroft said. A sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead. ‘Sheila here is just being cautious, aren’t you? It’s understandable.’

‘She’s taking the piss, Nige,’ the black guy said.

‘Stand down, Steve. And you, Trev. It’s okay. We’re all good. Sheila’s just going to chew over my offer, aren’t you, love?’

Conky could almost taste the adrenalin in the air. Blood rushed and roared in his ears. Here was the crux of the meet.

‘Love? Don’t you, “love” me, you presumptuous bastard,’ Sheila said, taking an all-important step away from Bancroft, though she still clutched the pistol in her hand.

Bancroft lowered his arms uncertainly. Gestured for his men to back down.

A young woman, clutching the hands of two small children, had started to cross the footbridge. She was moving closer by the second to the shores of the Lowry Theatre. Conky estimated that they had thirty seconds tops in which to negotiate a peaceful conclusion to the ill-fated proceedings. He was relieved to see the black guy shove his weapon back inside his coat pocket.

‘This meeting’s over,’ Sheila said, clumsily opening her handbag with the hand that clutched her gun. ‘Now, piss off back down the M6 with your proposition.’

But the white man-mountain in the leather donkey jacket was still aiming his gun at Sheila’s head. His colour was high. His eyes were glazed. Conky knew a man who had lost control when he saw one. The woman with the two small children was upon him, looking askance at the spectacle of a giant clutching a gun. When she screamed, Conky knew he’d left it too long to react.

Chapter 4

Paddy

‘Another pint, Marcus, kind sir!’ Paddy thrust his glass out towards the craggy-faced landlord, brandishing it beneath the short man’s nose as if it were a broken bottle. His words were slurring – he could hear that much. Had been for the last hour. But with every pint of bitter he drank, the reality of Kenneth Wainwright’s sad, shitty, low-rent world became more blissfully blurred around the edges; the ache of the scar where his body had been opened up with a boning knife by that little arsehole Leviticus Bell, posing as Asaf Smolensky, had dulled … just for a booze-numbed while.