Choosetheplot, p.8
#ChooseThePlot, page 8
‘No,’ Golden said.
‘She’s worse than Ribisi. She must think she can make use of you or you’d already be dead, Inspector.’ Charlie stepped into the light. He was sweating, his shirt was rumpled and he looked desperately tired. Serena was mainly interested, however, in the gun in his hand. It was a Glock, but as far as Serena was concerned, that wasn’t the most important thing about it. The important thing was that it was pointing directly at Golden’s heart.
‘Don’t be fooled by her face.’ Charlie’s voice was hoarse. ‘Looks like an angel, thinks like a devil.’
‘Why are you doing this?’ Golden sobbed. ‘Charlie, why do you want to destroy me?’
‘Because you need to be stopped.’ He shook his head, staring at his wife. ‘You’re worse than I ever imagined.’
Golden closed her eyes and a tear ran down her cheek. ‘I can’t listen to this anymore,’ she said softly.
A red rose bloomed in the middle of Charlie Over’s forehead. Serena stared at it for a second, not understanding, only realising what had happened as the big man crumpled to the ground. Golden screamed again, rushing forward to crouch beside her husband’s body. Serena whirled around to see who had fired the shot. A flicker of movement behind a pillar caught her eye and a split second later she heard the roar of an engine.
‘Golden, run!’ she yelled, but it was too late. A dark figure on a black motorbike swerved in front of her and came to a stop. The rider bent low over Golden and lifted her up, pinning her in front of him, then took off. Before Serena could do anything to help her, she was gone.
‘Golden!’ Her voice echoed in the empty car park, bouncing off the walls.
No answer. No point in trying to run after them.
She was gone.
And with her went Serena’s chance to work out what was going on. Because she knew the figure on the bike – his style was unmistakable, and so was the gun he’d used. It was Ribisi’s tame killer, the invisible man, flickering into view for a moment and then disappearing again. Taking with him a new victim, to kill at Ribisi’s command. Because he’d wanted to take his time with her, Serena guessed, and shivered.
Then again, maybe Golden was his boss, and he’d rescued her from her husband. He’d sprung her from imprisonment in a safe house. From Serena.
Serena walked over and looked down at Charlie Over’s body. Had he been telling the truth? Had Golden? Either way, Serena had reached a dead end.
Or had she? Something lay on the ground beside Charlie’s head. Something that didn’t belong there.
Something that made Serena realise she’d been wrong about just about everything so far.
And the one thing she knew for certain was that it was time to put it right.
So is Golden a cold-hearted criminal mastermind, manipulating the police, her husband and everyone else to get her own way? Or is she telling the truth about seeking some kind of justice for her dead brother?
Is she good? Or is she evil?
Who should Serena believe?
If you think Golden is evil, head to Chapter 4.
If you think she is innocent, head to Chapter 7.
4
Cut and Print
Christopher Fowler
Serena Black picked up the object beside Charlie’s head and turned it over in her hand. Another brand new black and gold credit card. But this one was different.
She stared at the name on the card in shock.
Serena Black.
‘I don’t understand,’ she said aloud, tilting it to the light and reading the name again. The only cards she owned were her debit card from the bank, an M&S card and her swipe-card for the entry system to Barloch Street police station.
There was no time to think about it now. She ran toward the car park exit. She needed to find phone reception. The pedestrian staircase was too far away. She headed up the concrete slope and punched the red emergency shutter release that opened the main garage door. Unable to wait for it to roll all the way up, she grunted and ducked underneath, running out into the street. There was no sign of the bike now, of course. It could have gone anywhere.
She was about to call in when she stopped herself and took stock of the situation. Who could she really trust? Newsome and Somerville would presumably have realised that something had gone wrong by now. Gilmore was the only one she knew well enough to take a chance on. He wasn’t important enough to be involved in anything dodgy. She punched out his number.
‘Happy, where are you?’
‘Barloch, but I can be anywhere you want me to be, Chief. What’s the deal?’
‘We need to run better background checks on our drivers. The cars were split up. We were shunted off into an underground car park. Golden got snatched by one of Ribisi’s men. I’m on foot outside…’ she squinted up at the road, ‘Bell Street, past the old fruit market, outside the public parking. How long?’
‘No time – hang on.’
‘And Happy – don’t tell anyone you’re coming. You understand? Not a soul.’ She knew he would have the good sense not to ask why. She closed the phone and paced the wet pavement. Think it through, she told herself. You can do this.
Everyone had been played, right from the start. As she caught her breath, she tried to put the events in order. Mandy McFarland had discovered that her new partner was using the Water House as a front for distributing drugs, and had told the last person in the world who should know what was going on, Golden, the wife of Ribisi’s rival, Charlie Over.
Mandy had become a liability, and there she was, meeting and greeting at a high-profile restaurant where she could keep shooting her mouth off to all and sundry. She had to be silenced, so Ian McFarland had received the card from the Elimination Bureau which would frame him.
Her new partner Jake Finnegan was no longer needed either, because he had talked to his indiscreet girlfriend, and because his role in setting up the restaurant as a drug front was over and done with. Ian had simply been in the way.
Which just left Golden – and as soon as she had been taken care of things could return to normal. The police investigation would be buried once Supt. Webb realised that the streets were suddenly quieter. It was too bad that a few innocents had got caught in the crossfire, but nobody wanted to start a war with Ribisi. Why risk drafting in more foot soldiers from the Scottish Camorra in Aberdeen, Scotland’s very own Naples?
So her bosses would turn a blind eye and Golden would disappear, and they’d shake their heads and mutter about moths getting too close to flames, and all would be right with the world once more.
Except, thought Black, that my son is still fighting to survive in the Glasgow Royal Infirmary’s rehabilitation programme thanks to cops who allow scum like Ribisi to strut about the streets with guns and swords, treating the city as their killing grounds.
Much to her surprise, Gilmore roared into the street on a 1000cc motorbike. ‘Where d’you get that beast from?’ she asked as he struggled with the kickstand. ‘Who do you think you are? Easy Rider?’
‘Easy Rider was made a quarter of a century before I was born,’ said Gilmore. ‘You said not to tell anyone. I couldn’t risk taking anything else out. This belongs to the caretaker.’
‘We have to find Golden, and fast,’ said Black, climbing on.
‘How are we going to do that?’
‘Ribisi will want to know if she’s talked to anyone else before he gets rid of her,’ Black replied. ‘Try and think of a place he’s familiar with that would drown out the noise of a girl screaming.’
‘Ribisi owns a paper mill on the Clydesmill Industrial Estate,’ said Gilmore. ‘It’s working 24/7. That’s the noisiest place I can think of.’
‘And they say the youth of today have no brains,’ said Black. ‘Let’s go.’
The road to the west was quiet in the evening’s sudden squall of rain, and the slick roads made the bike hard to handle, but Serena Black knew they were running out of time, though she did warn Gilmore about running reds after he’d done it three times and nearly got them killed beneath the wheels of an artic.
It was dark by the time they pulled into the rear of the car park beside the factory, but lights showed in the great paper sheds, and as Black climbed gratefully off the bike she could feel the hammer of machinery vibrating through the soles of her boots.
‘I’d be a lot happier about this if we had a nice show of blues and twos sliding around in the gravel here,’ said Gilmore gloomily. ‘Is that the bike you saw?’ He pointed to a Kawasaki cooling near the main entrance.
‘That’s the one Golden was snatched on all right,’ said Black. ‘It’s a custom paint job.’
Gilmore stopped for a moment and turned to her. ‘You seriously want us to go in there alone?’
‘We’ll take a side entrance, talk to the workers, keep it all as safe as we can,’ said Black, setting off toward the building.
Gilmore had to run to keep up. ‘If this is about you not wanting to split the credit –’
‘It has nothing to do with credit for the case, and you know it,’ she called back. ‘Why did Newsome and Somerville go in the other car? Do you think they knew what might happen? I can’t call it in because I don’t know who to trust.’
She reached the steel entrance door and tried the handle. It swung open on a vast brightly lit chamber filled with the smell of hot newsprint. She walked further in, beckoning to Gilmore. The place was big enough to induce a sense of agoraphobia when she looked up. On either side of them rose towering steel struts from which were suspended floors of printing equipment. The machinery took up the entire length of the factory floor. Newspapers wound around and down through the system on curving steel ramps like a hellish roller coaster.
The noise was tremendous. At the base a great swathe of paper roared beneath the rollers, under a row of red and yellow lights.
The pair looked about for signs of human life.
‘Where is everyone?’ Gilmore asked.
‘It’s fully automated,’ Black replied. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. The offices. They must be upstairs. Those stairs. One way up – easier to monitor who’s coming in. They’ve probably already seen us.’
‘So how are we going to get to them?’
‘Well, we won’t exactly have the element of surprise whatever we do. But even they might not act up with a couple of officers on the premises. Are you wearing a camera?’
‘Yeah, but I never use it.’
‘Leave it on. We’ll need proof of this.’ She began to climb the steel staircase to the first level office.
At the top of the staircase, a broad metal landing led to offices that looked like wooden portakabins, their blinds drawn across their lit windows. Black turned to Gilmore and shrugged, an In For A Penny, In For A Pound gesture as she tried the door handle and pushed in.
As she feared, they were expected. Under the strip-lighting, Ribisi appeared paler and gaunter than ever. Golden was on the other side of his desk, absurdly overdressed for her new surroundings, her face turned away from them. She appeared to be alive and well.
The opening door had placed the room’s occupants in an awkward tableau. For a moment, nobody moved. Ribisi’s men were nowhere in sight. Something was off with the whole scene, which was as stiff and unnatural as a set of Madame Tussaud waxworks. Ribisi broke the pose first.
‘I was beginning to wonder when you’d get here,’ he said in his peculiar Scottish-Neapolitan brogue. ‘Did you have a good journey?’ He might have been an hotelier speaking to an arriving guest.
Golden released a sob but remained still.
‘You know we’re not leaving here without you, Alessandro,’ said Black, trying to sound confident. ‘She’s all right, is she?’ She gestured to Golden, still seated in the chair with her back to them.
Golden turned around. She wasn’t crying but laughing. ‘You win your bet, Alessandro,’ she said, stifling a giggle. ‘She’s an honest cop. Who would have imagined such a thing? You still have the credit card, Mrs Black?’ She rolled one finger over the other. ‘Turn it over and call the number.’
‘No, I think we’ve had enough of your games, love,’ said Serena. ‘Setting up your own kidnap to get us here. It looks like you and Ribisi are running the show. Makes sense to keep it all in the family. Why do you need me to ring this?’ She held the card high between thumb and forefinger.
‘It’s a formality,’ said Ribisi, setting down his whisky tumbler. ‘Just for the record.’
Playing for time, Black took out her phone. ‘Happy, you’ll have to read out the numbers,’ she said. ‘The type’s too small for me.’
Gilmore stepped forward, his frown deepening into incomprehension, but he did as he was instructed. Black punched out the number and waited.
‘Mrs Serena Black,’ said an Italian-Scottish voice. ‘How can I help you today?’
‘Tell them you want to activate the card,’ said Golden.
‘I’d like to activate my card.’
‘Please give me the last four digits on the front of your card.’
‘6859.’
‘And now the passcode.’
‘9087249.’
‘That’s fine. Would you like to change your code to something more memorable?’
‘No.’
‘Very well. Your credit limit is one million pounds.’
Black drew a sharp breath. ‘What can I get for that?’
‘If you’d care to speak to Mr Ribisi, I’m sure he’ll be happy to take you through the procedure.’ The line went dead.
‘Golden and I have a problem,’ said Ribisi, walking around the desk. ‘We can’t trust your Superintendent any longer.’
‘Oliver Webb is a very greedy man,’ said Golden, still smiling. ‘Greed makes men do stupid things.’
‘What, you want me to kill him for a million quid?’ said Black, amazed. ‘Happy, are you hearing this? Do you think they’ve misunderstood the basic principles of policing, these two?’
Gilmore didn’t answer. He was quaking in his police-issue boots.
‘We don’t want you to get rid of him,’ said Golden. ‘That is what the Elimination Bureau is for.’
‘You mean you send out the cards and get others who are more easily tempted to carry out your dirty work for you?’
‘They’re well paid. The privilege of membership.’
‘So what do you expect me to do?’
‘We want you to take over from Oliver Webb. Run the legal side of things for us, as he was doing. We’ll take care of the rest.’
‘What exactly would my duties be?’ asked Black, still amazed by their effrontery.
‘Charlie Over and Jake Finnegan are gone,’ Golden replied. ‘That means one big company now instead of two rivals. We’re working in the interests of this city. You just have to make sure that nothing gets in our way.’
‘And if I don’t?’
‘You have a son in the hospital,’ said Golden softly. ‘We have many customers there. Even in the rehabilitation clinic.’
‘That’s sick,’ muttered Black. She flicked the credit card back at them. ‘I don’t need a million that badly. I formally refuse your offer and I’m taking you in, so you can stay the hell away from my son.’
She threw Gilmore an urgent glance. She needed him to pick up the look and interpret it. Ribisi couldn’t let either of them live now that they knew about the Superintendent’s involvement.
‘Let’s go downstairs,’ said Ribisi. ‘Golden, show them the way.’
They might have been visiting dignitaries getting a tour of the plant, heading in single file down the staircase, not even at the point of the world’s most expensive pistol. The situation did not call for a display of firepower; everyone here knew what exactly what everyone else was capable of doing.
As they reached the first of the printing presses, Black stalled for time. She had to shout to be heard. ‘So what happens now?’ she said.
Ribisi looked apologetic as he waved her on. ‘You’re yesterday’s news,’ he called back. ‘Get in.’
Black realised with horror that he wanted her to keep going until she reached the metal steps at the last machine press, which was not for printing at all but for cutting the quad sheets into single pages. The great guillotine blades rose and fell with a terrible zinging sound, separating the paper stock into crisp clean stacks. The papers rolled off around a corner and were collected by steel arms. The thundering sound of the presses was unbearable.
Golden punched a mushroom-shaped button that raised the mesh guard in front of the slithering blades. An alarm added to the cacophony somewhere above them, and yellow lights began to rotate, warning employees that the safety bar was raised while the machine was still in operation. She slapped Black in the kidneys and forced her up the steps.
The DCI understood their thinking; they had never expected her to take up their offer. Wiping out the only investigating officers sent a very clear message to Oliver Webb; Don’t get greedy again or you’ll be next. The empire would be back on track after this. There was nothing she could say or do which would make any difference now. Two crime empires united? The Glasgow underworld’s biggest dream was about to come true. Who was she, a single mum who’d defected to London and come crawling back when that didn’t work out? Nobody knew her here, and nobody would miss her – except the one person who really needed her, and he was in an infirmary, about to be put back on the drugs that had very nearly killed him.
She stopped on the top step and looked back at Gilmore. His eyes were desperately locked to hers. They said: what do you want me to do?
But she was out of ideas.
The alarm siren was so loud that she couldn’t think. The lights strobed the walls, but nobody came.
The alarm…
It should be connected to the emergency services. Why had no emergency response unit rung to see if everything was all right at the plant? Because Ribisi knows exactly how long he has, she thought. She looked down at the racing paper track and knew she could only stall for a few moments more. She had reached the end and poor old Happy wouldn’t be able to come up with anything.
