The Cover Up: A gripping crime thriller for 2018. Marnie Riches

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       Chapter 10

       Paddy

      Staring at the flickering computer screen, Paddy considered what he might write next to Ellis James. He took a swig from his can of extra-strength lager, glad that he had managed to stave off another lunchtime hangover by continuing to drink steadily throughout the afternoon. Relieved that Brenda had taken pity on him and let him hang around at hers, where he could crank the heating up at her expense and raid her fridge. Kyle’s laptop was infinitely superior to the piece of shit he had at his place. Kyle’s bedroom was the only decent room in the dump, though the thirteen-year-old was way too old for the brightly coloured kiddy cars and trains that covered the wall, now partly concealed beneath posters of some dickhead band called Twenty-One Pilots.

      Back to the screen. What to say today?

      ‘If you want to know where Maureen Kaplan keeps bent accounting records,’ he said out loud as he typed slowly with two fingers, ‘check out Bella’s Afro Hair Supplies in Crumpsall before end of month.’ He signed the email off as ‘Shadow Hunter’, using the moniker of one of those YouTubing twats that Kyle followed. Pressed send and slurped at the beer. Waited for the response. And waited.

      Paddy pressed F5 repeatedly, wondering when the hell the berk of a detective would get back to him. He scratched at his groin. Maybe he ought to shower more regularly. Kenneth Wainwright’s shower in that tired two-up, two-down rental was shite. The water either came through scalding hot or freezing cold. The pressure was almost non-existent from the cheap electric shower rig-up that had been poorly screwed onto the tiled wall by the private landlord. Brenda’s was no better.

      Showering. Who would have thought that one of the things he missed most about being a wealthy man was daily access to a good power shower in a clean bathroom?

      But Paddy was jolted out of his musings on personal hygiene and poor man’s water pressure by the arrival of a response from his least favourite dogged detective.

      Re: Maureen Kaplan tip-off

      James, Ellis <[email protected]>

      To: Shadow Hunter ([email protected])

      Hi SH,

      How do you know about Maureen Kaplan? Where are you getting your intel from? Can we meet? What can you tell me about Jonny Margulies and Tariq Khan?

      Regards

      E.J.

      Paddy smiled at the screen. Ellis James was more than intrigued. He was well and truly on the hook, and Paddy would enjoy reeling him in slowly. All those years he’d spent trying to pull the thorn from his side that was the detective and his Rottweiler of a tax-inspecting sidekick, Ruth Darley, and now, here James was: the instrument of Paddy’s revenge.

      ‘Don’t worry where I got info from,’ he wrote. ‘It’s good.’

      He contemplated his link to the outside world – Hank the Wank had had a busy week of it, installing hi-tech sound-recording equipment in the offices of Maureen Kaplan when she was out at meetings. His oldest school friend was proving to be the perfect choice for a spy. Loyal as they came. No criminal record. Blended in everywhere, because who gave a workman in overalls a second thought if he went about his business with a merry whistle and an air of confidence? Endlessly excited by the novelty of subterfuge, and inexperienced enough not to have a clue what his skills were really worth on the black market. So far, Hank was working for peanuts and considered it a small fortune. So far, Katrina was indulging Paddy in sticking him an extra few hundred here and there to assist his transition back to normal life.

      By the time the money runs out, Paddy thought, staring at the blinking cursor, I’ll have ruined the lot of them scheming bastards. He rubbed his hands together. Then, Kenneth Wainwright can shove it up his sad, dole-ite arse, because Paddy Big-Bollocks is coming back, baby!

      With his index fingers hovering over the keyboard, Paddy contemplated what else to feed the detective with.

      ‘Did you know the Boddlingtons have brothels on Trafford Street and Grove Close in Sweeney Hall?’ He clicked send.

      The main focus for Paddy’s anger was, of course, Sheila, since the lousy cow had sought to end him. Beyond that, he would not rest until Leviticus Bell was dead. Memories of that fateful poolside scene where he’d been sliced open and left for dead only months earlier were blurry, but he was certain that Lev Bell’s face had been hiding beneath a false beard and those stupid bloody sidelocks – an imitation Shylock, coming for his pound of flesh, trying to pin it on Asaf Smolensky. Very damned clever. Not clever enough to dupe him – the mighty Paddy O’Brien, however. But the Boddlingtons …? Why the hell should they evade the strong arm of the law? It would be easier to take his empire back with the enemy already weakened.

      Waiting for Ellis James to respond, he jumped when a thin voice behind him said, ‘What the fuck you doing in my room on my laptop?’

      Paddy turned СКАЧАТЬ