Dead of Winter

Chapter 66

Carmichael walked through Soho and into Cain’s. Ray had been replaced by another barman he didn’t recognize. ‘Digger around?’

‘Who shall I say is asking, sir?’

‘Hart.’

The barman went away and returned a few moments later.

‘Digger says to go up to his apartment. Jock will take you up there.’

Carmichael turned to see a big black guy walking his way. He smiled. ‘Jock?’

‘Follow me, sir.’

Through the club, past the podiums and behind the velvet curtain, Jock opened a door and led the way up a steep flight of stairs: the back entrance to the floor upstairs and Digger’s apartment. Jock opened the apartment door for him and Carmichael heard the sound of laughter. He followed Jock around to the left and found Digger in a lounge that could have been used in a low-budget porn movie from the Seventies.

Digger greeted Carmichael from his armchair. He held up his glass as a salute. His eyes were watching Carmichael closely.

‘Welcome, Mr Hart. We were just talking about you. You came just in time. These are the club owners I told you about. Meet Sim, Amir. We were discussing our futures.’

‘Perfect timing then.’

Carmichael looked at the other men in the room: two young Turks and Tyrone with one of the girls. He recognized the young girl, Anna. She looked like she was barely conscious. Her head lolled back, her eyes half closed as she sat between the club owners. Tyrone was watching him nervously. He sat chopping up thick lines of coke on the tabletop, his nose dripping as he wiped it with his sleeve. Digger was watching Carmichael in between laughing at one of the Turks’ jokes. He was stroking the dog on his lap. The jokes were all at Digger’s expense. He knew they disliked him as much as he did them. They loved calling him paramý, which Carmichael knew was Turkish for cocksucker. The Turks followed Digger’s gaze towards Carmichael.

‘We were just discussing the loss of Sonny. These men own clubs in Leeds.’

Digger gave the faintest of knowing smiles, a tease, a secret shared that excluded them. He turned back to his guests and twitched his head in Carmichael’s direction: ‘Big man.’

Carmichael took his time as he removed his coat and hung it in the hallway; then he crossed the room towards them. As he got nearer he could see that Sim was too drunk to stop his eyes rolling round in his skull when he tried to focus. Amir sat back and tapped his finger slowly on the arm of his chair.

A new bottle of whisky arrived at the same time, via Jock. Carmichael spoke to Jock and the bottle was soon replaced by a fifty-year-old single malt.

‘Can’t have my homeland represented by a bottle of piss,’ Carmichael said. He leant forward and poured Amir and Digger a generous shot, handed it to them, and saluted them.

‘To Sonny.’ The dog jumped down.

Amir watched Carmichael closely as he raised his glass.

Digger gestured his way. ‘A little bird told me you took shipment, Hart. .’ Tyrone stopped chopping and looked up. Carmichael took his time to turn his attention back to Digger who said: ‘Tyrone sings a tune for anyone who pays. Don’t you, Tyrone?’ The silence in the room was ended by a nervous snigger from Tyrone.

‘Sure. I took shipment.’

‘Where are they? Tyrone says they’re not at his place.’

‘Where I keep the girls is my business.’ Carmichael smiled.

Sim staggered to his feet with what looked like a supreme effort; he lurched in the direction of the bathroom and didn’t come back. Amir looked at Digger. Digger was smirking into his drink. His eyes twinkled in the gloom. Tyrone was trying to squirm his way out of the group. He went to stand up and move away from the table. Carmichael reached across a hand to push him back in the chair, all the while keeping his eyes on Digger. ‘I’ve got plenty of girls. No one else is going to get them for you. No one takes my girls without my say-so. I make the rules now.’

‘I didn’t ask to come here, bro,’ Tyrone whispered to Carmichael, half grimacing and half smiling as he did so.

Amir knocked back his drink. He stared at Carmichael.

‘Of course. .’ Carmichael grinned as he poured out more drinks. ‘The first five will be on me. . as a show of good faith.’

Amir grinned and crashed his glass against Carmichael’s. ‘You make good business, my friend.’

Another bottle later and Amir got unsteadily to his feet, pulling Anna up with him. He swayed as he walked back towards the doorway and then they heard him crash along the corridor. Carmichael heard him open a door to one of the rooms.

Digger looked across at Carmichael.

‘We have a lot to talk about, you and I?’

‘Do you think so?’

Digger was watching Carmichael in the gloom of the lounge with the sound of squeaking as Tyrone scraped a credit card along the table top and gathered the dust into a pile and continued chopping; the coke was so fine now it was evaporating as he breathed. It blew across the glass table. On the mantelpiece an antique clock in a glass dome kept time in the room. Carmichael heard Anna crying from another room.

Tyrone had stopped chopping and was watching Carmichael.

Digger raised his voice to be heard over Anna’s rhythmical cries that came with each thrust.

‘I am sorry you had a spot of bother earlier. It was a misunderstanding. That’s why I wanted you to come this evening to clear it up.’

‘It didn’t bother me. Buster was a bit upset though.’

Digger nodded, gently amused but still keeping his eyes on Carmichael.

‘Deano’s brains matched the size of head, I apologize.’

‘So you didn’t send him to kill me?’

‘Of course not.’

‘I would have.’

Tyrone’s eyes went back and forth from one man to another as if he were watching ping-pong.

Digger tutted and shook his head. ‘My new business partner? Of course not. I think we have a big future ahead of us.’

‘Not a past?’

Digger gave a small flutter of his right eye: a nervous habit that had stopped him progressing in the game of poker. He frowned and shook his head pretending not to understand what Carmichael could mean.

‘You recognize me, don’t you? We know one another from a long time ago.’

Digger’s eye stopped twitching, his body began to tense and his shoulders to raise a fraction. His hand went down to the space beside his left leg where he had a revolver hidden in the gap between the cushions.

‘I don’t know you.’

‘I used to be a policeman?’ Digger shook his head just one slow long movement. ‘Yes I did. I came here once and talked to you about an incident across the street.’ Digger feigned surprise. ‘Yeah it was a career that was short-lived for me. I learnt a lot, some of it useful, but I was glad to get out.’ Digger smiled, nodded his head wisely. ‘I mean,’ Carmichael continued, ‘I still have a few contacts in the MET; it’s always a useful thing to have.’ He grinned. Digger laughed until his false laugh trailed into nothing. ‘I need a piss.’ Carmichael stood. ‘Where is it?’

‘The bathroom is round on the left.’ Digger waved his hand towards the corridor that led from the lounge.

As he passed the corner in the hallway and out of view of Digger, Carmichael slipped his hand to his boot and took out his knife. He saw Sim passed out further down the corridor, slumped in a doorway. He walked past the bathroom towards the sounds of the girl. He turned the handle on the door and stepped into the darkness, shut the door fast. Amir had his back to the door, thrusting hard inside Anna, face down on the bed. He reached and pulled Amir back by his hair and slit his throat from left to right. He placed one hand over Anna’s mouth to stop her screaming as the jet of blood hit her back.

Carmichael held out a flat hand in the air and then made a sign for her to be quiet. ‘Stay here.’ She nodded, fast, frantic little movements.

He pulled Amir’s body off her and away from the door as he stepped back out in the hallway. Shutting the door quickly and silently, Carmichael crept further down, looked past him; the room was empty. The lounge had fallen silent. Carmichael slid down the wall and edged towards the corner, took his revolver from the inside of his jacket pocket and listened. No sound of Tyrone chopping or scraping, but he heard the noise of feet on the stairs leading to the flat.

Jock opened the door. ‘Alright, Mr Cain?’

Carmichael was squatting against the wall on his right looking up at him; Digger was in the lounge straight ahead and to his left.

Carmichael motioned him forward with his gun. Jock stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Digger was silent. Carmichael flicked his gun in the direction of the lounge. Jock began moving forward, his arms in the air behind his head. Carmichael stepped in behind him. He felt the bullet as it passed through Jock and stopped when it hit the bulletproof vest he kept as a souvenir from his days in the MET.

He dropped down to one knee just before Jock hit the floor and he fired at Digger. One shot. He didn’t want to kill him. One shot in his stomach.

Tyrone scrabbled under the table.

He held his hand up to Carmichael.

‘Let’s talk.’

‘You know who I am.’

‘The policeman.’

‘The father. The husband.’

Carmichael walked across and pulled Digger up to his feet.

‘Thirteen years ago you were there at Rose Cottage.’ Digger didn’t answer. ‘You raped my wife and murdered my child.’

Tyrone raised his head slightly from under the table. Digger looked up at Carmichael.

‘No.’

‘Yes.’ Carmichael shot him once through each thigh and pushed him into the chair. ‘And you don’t have the guts to admit it. But you have time. There’s a lot of pain between here and dying.’

‘Fuck,’ said Tyrone as he looked at the mess across the wall where Jock’s brains were splattered. He looked back towards Digger, his eyes popping, as he fought for oxygen. ‘We’ve got to get out. Shit man. . we’re dead.’

Carmichael went into the bathroom to wash the blood splatters from his hands and face. He opened the bedroom door and found Anna trying to hide. He pulled her up to the sink in the bathroom. ‘Wash your face.’ He turned her to the mirror. ‘Wash.’

She ran to the tap and splashed water over her face. The basin turned red. Carmichael looked at her hair it was matted with Amir’s blood. He reached across the bath and lifted up the hand held shower, turned it on, and dragged her across to the bath where he held her head under the flow of water until the water ran clear. He turned it off and threw a towel across to her and they went back into the lounge. Carmichael left her there whilst he checked out the other rooms in Digger’s flat and then came back into the lounge.

‘There’s no other way out onto the street. We can get out through the club and through to the clip joint next door. There’s a door that joins them. I estimate we have ten minutes before someone’s going to miss Jock. Pick up everything that might have something of you on it.’ He looked at the girl. She was shaking so violently that he knew she’d give them away.

‘We have to leave her, bro,’ Tyrone said. ‘We might make it; she fucking won’t. You can’t shoot your way out of here.’

‘I’m not leaving her. Here. . put this on. .’ He threw Anna a coat from one of the pegs by the door and a Russian style fur hat that must have been Digger’s. ‘We have to cross over in front of the bar. Just before we get to the floor there’s an exit on the left. We slip in there and through to the clip joint beyond. If we’re lucky we won’t find anyone in there.’

‘We won’t make it, bro.’

‘Yes we will and when we do, I’ll give you enough money to clean up and get out, after you deliver this girl where I tell you.’ Tyrone nodded fast, nervous.

‘Okay.’

‘Let’s go. . no, wait a minute. .’ He went back to Digger, who was still breathing, staring straight ahead, his eyes wide. Carmichael took out his gun and forced it into Digger’s mouth. ‘This is for my wife and child.’ He pulled the trigger. He picked up the towel that Anna had been using to dry her hair and wiped the gun. Then he walked across, got his own coat, opened the door to the flat and stopped to listen. The sound of the club drifted up from downstairs. Carmichael held Anna’s arm as they crept downstairs.

‘I’ll take the girl first. Follow at least ten paces behind and don’t look like you’re going our way,’ he whispered to Tyrone as they neared the club floor.

Carmichael opened the door just enough and drew back the velvet curtain. The music heralded a new batch of dancers coming out. It was prime time for punters arriving. Carmichael held onto the girl’s arm as they slipped out and made their way towards the bar. He didn’t turn to see if Tyrone was following. They walked quickly through the club and through the door that linked to the Crystal Blue clip joint. Carmichael stopped as he heard the sound of arguments. Someone was being asked for two hundred pounds for drinks; the argument was getting heated. Tyrone came up behind them. Carmichael took out the revolver and tucked the girl between himself and Tyrone. He made a sign for Tyrone to follow him.

They walked around the corner into two of Digger’s bouncers and a couple of lads on a stag do in Soho. They turned and looked at Carmichael’s face and then at his gun.

‘Move, lads. . get out.’ The stags scarpered up the stairs. Carmichael heard the Thai woman curse as they knocked past her. One of the bouncers lurched forward. Carmichael hit him with the butt of his gun and pushed them both back.

‘Sit.’ He motioned to them to sit down where the stags had been. ‘You want to die?’ Blood was pouring from where he’d hit the bald man on the head. ‘No? Then stay where you are for ten minutes.’ He reached inside his jacket and put money on the table. The men looked at him and at each other, then one man gathered the wad of cash quickly and slipped it inside his jacket pocket.

Outside, he pulled out a packet for Tyrone. ‘Take her to Leeds railway station. Phone this number when you get there. I’ll leave you instructions where you can find the rest of your money.’ He handed it to him. ‘Then fuck off for good.’