“If Michael gets in touch …” he began.
Lorraine was standing at the front door, holding it open. “I don’t think he will.”
“But if he does, you’ll let us know. Let me know.”
She held his gaze. “He won’t. I’m certain.”
Resnick stepped past her, out on to the paved path. Somewhere, hidden from plain sight, someone was watching them through binoculars, most likely bored, waiting to be relieved.
“Maybe we’ll talk again,” Resnick said.
“Maybe.”
Before he had reached the gate, Lorraine had closed the front door and turned the key in the lock.
Thirteen
Michael Preston’s known criminal associates were four: Frost, O’Connell, Forbes, and Cassady. Frost, Crazy Frank, was safely locked away in Broadmoor, living up to his name. Gerry O’Connell had followed a family connection to Manchester and got himself shot for his pains, twice through the back of the head. Two down, two to go.
Naylor and Fowles went looking for Millington and found him in the canteen with the remains of double egg, beans, and chips. Late lunch or early supper.
“This Arthur Forbes, sarge,” Naylor said. “According to the file, you did him for burglary, five years back.”
Millington grinned through his mustache. “Arthur Quentin Forbes, reformed character these days. Wandered into the Church of Divine Revelations Pentecostal mission down in Sneinton, more than half out of his head on a cocktail of crack cocaine, ecstasy, and Spanish brandy. Seems the Holy Ghost stepped in to claim what was left. You can find him most days, preaching the gospel in the Old Market Square or parading up and down Angel Row strapped into sandwich boards proclaiming the Word.” Millington lit a cigarette. “I doubt if he and Preston’ve set up in business again, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Which leaves Cassady,” Naylor said.
Millington nodded. “Cassady, Liam H. Blagged his way on to some Government start-up scheme, set himself up in the security line.”
“Gold Standard,” Fowles said. “The outfit Jimmy Peters uses. Coincidence, d’you reckon? Nothing more?”
“Doubt it,” Millington said. “Cassady’s outfit must provide security for a good third of the clubs in the city.”
“Worth talking to, though,” Naylor said, “where Preston’s concerned?”
Millington glanced up at the canteen clock. “Get your skates on, you’ll catch him now with time to spare. Always assuming it’s regular office hours he’s working.”
“Right, sarge.”
Millington leaned back to enjoy his cigarette and ponder the possibility of rhubarb crumble and custard.
Liam Cassady had been born on the north side of Dublin, his father and his uncles working across the water for months at a time, sometimes remembering to send money home, sometimes not. When he was fourteen, Liam stowed away on the Dun Laoghaire-Holyhead ferry and found his old dad behind a pint of Guinness in a Cricklewood pub, one tattooed arm round the shoulders of a dark-haired woman who definitely wasn’t his mum. His father swore him to secrecy, boxed his ears, and sent him back home. When Liam tried the same dodge three years later, his dad stood him a pint and a large Bushmills to boot, introduced him to all his mates and, within a matter of days, had set him up with a slow-witted girl from County Mayo, working as a chambermaid in a hotel near King’s Cross.
Cassady soon fell in with a bunch of tearaways who did their drinking in the Archway Tavern. After chucking-out time, they’d amuse themselves by picking fights in the Irish dance hall on the Holloway Road, or doing a bit of breaking and entering in the quieter streets between Hornsey and Palmers Green. Quite a bit.
Soon Liam had money and didn’t mind spending it. His girlfriend now was a would-be photographic model with a Scottish mother and a Trinidadian father. When Liam decided his patch of north London was getting too hot for comfort, the law having carried off three of his mates to the local nick in as many weeks, she followed him north to Liverpool. And Warrington. And Leeds. Jacky, that was her name, though Liam liked to call her Jack.
He still saw her from time to time, even after two abortions, a miscarriage, two marriages-one each-one divorce-hers-and two children-his and Jean’s.
Jean, Cassady had met after he’d arrived in the East Midlands and was doing the occasional spot of casual laboring by day, hanging out with the lads at night. Michael Preston and the rest. Great days. Five jobs they’d pulled off, five in eighteen months and though the law had their suspicions, when it came to hard evidence they didn’t have jack shit.
And Jean, Cassady thought, was different. They got married and moved into a house in the Meadows, intent on settling down. Jean: he liked to call her Jeanie. It was all a long time ago.
They were still married, though; two boys, Jimmy and Dan. After the second, Jean had turned away from him and now Liam met Jacky every month or so, always a hotel, always out of town. Jacky was living in Sheffield and they tried to find somewhere in between. Jean knew, of course, though it was nothing they ever discussed; she knew and in a way she was happy; if he was getting what he wanted from Jacky, it took the pressure off her. Live and let live, it was the best way.
Fowles had given himself a final check-over in the mirror of the gents before leaving the station: chinos, button-down Ben Sherman shirt, blue zip-up jacket with leather facing on the collar, brown leather shoes with a heavy lugged sole. Alongside Naylor, who was sporting one of his suits from Man at C amp;A, he looked a regular fashion item.
“Just remember,” Naylor warned, “no going in heavy.”
“As if.”
“Ben, I’m serious.”
“I know, I know.”
Gold Standard Security had its office on the first floor of a postwar building close to the Ice Stadium. Pale brick and iron bars across the windows on the ground floor. Fowles winked and pressed his finger to the bell.
They were buzzed up into a single room that stretched from front to back, with a tall walk-in cupboard to the left of the door. There were two desks: one near the rear window and unoccupied now, was used by the woman who came in three afternoons a week and issued invoices, made payments, did what she could to keep things in order; Cassady himself looked up from behind the other and smiled a lopsided smile. “Gentlemen …”
Shelves behind Cassady’s desk were mostly taken up by box files, cartons, telephone directories, and a few paperback thrillers-Grisham, Dick Francis, Tom Clancy. A television set stood on a low table within Cassady’s easy range of vision. The security monitor was at one side of his desk, a computer on the other.
“This will be about the other night,” Cassady offered. “That business at the Hot Spot.”
“Will it?” Fowles said.
“What else? I gave our man a right bollocking, you can imagine. One more cock-up like that and he’s out. Not the way to handle things at all.” He looked serious for a moment, then grinned. “Pull over a couple of them chairs, why don’t you? Take the weight off your feet.”
Neither man moved.
“Michael Preston,” Naylor said.
Cassady’s brow furrowed. “Preston?”
Fowles shook his head. “Your mate, Michael Preston. That’s who we’re looking for.”
“Who?”
Fowles laughed out loud. “What’s that meant to be? A joke? Good crack? See that, Kev? Straight-faced. Clever. Natural comedians, the Irish. You are Irish? Flair for language, it’s well known. James Joyce. The Pogues. You’ve not got Ulysses on your shelves, I see. No, well, better kept at home. Bedtime reading. He was a filthy old sod, Joyce, but then what can you expect from a man who never left the house without his collection of women’s dirty knickers. We’d have had him locked up for it, no two ways. Where is he, then, Michael Preston? And don’t tell us you don’t know.”
“I don’t know.”
“But you know who I mean?”