Lifting the Lid(89)

Bloody hell. So that was it.

‘Fuck me,’ said Harry, whose mouth had hung open in silent horror from the moment he had witnessed Delia’s betrayal.

‘I’d really rather not, old boy, if it’s all the same to you. Besides, I’m very much a one-man man nowadays, aren’t I, Michael?’ Bracewell said with an impish smile and moved his hand from Delia’s shoulder to his waist.

Although still in a state of shock himself, MacFarland found the look of disgust on Harry’s face highly entertaining and in any other circumstance would have been hard pressed to have stifled a snigger. Despite his obvious revulsion, Harry seemed to have no such inhibition, but there was no trace of amusement in his scornful laughter.

‘Michael? Michael? Fucking Judas, more like. Or maybe that should be Judy, eh? I’ve been bloody good to you, I ‘ave. Scabby little cocksucker.’

‘You see, Harry, it’s exactly that kind of—’

It was the first time Delia had uttered a word since they’d entered the flat, but Harry wasn’t about to let him get any further. In fact, he ignored him altogether and turned his attention on Bracewell instead.

‘And since when ‘ave you been a knob jockey? Still, I s’pose I should‘ve known with a name like Joooolian and that poncey fuckin’ accent of yours.’ Then a thought seemed to occur to him, and his eyes blazed like a shark’s in a feeding frenzy. ‘Hey, maybe you developed a liking for takin’ it up the arse ever since I screwed you over that Croydon job.’

Even though MacFarland had been half expecting it, he still flinched at the dull pinging sound and the flash from Bracewell’s silenced gun.





CHAPTER FORTY-SIX



Convincing DS Logan about the dead body in the flat had not been easy. From the moment Swann had brought Trevor back into the living room, he had been intent on one course of action alone – to continue questioning him about Imelda’s disappearance. He had completely ignored Trevor and Sandra’s protestations, and it was only when Sandra had told him the man was a Member of Parliament that he had begun to hesitate. Then she had shown him the MP’s identity card, and the hesitation had turned into a full scale pause, at the end of which he had instructed Swann to make some enquiries.

She had made a couple of calls, but there had been no reports of a missing MP. Logan had seemed satisfied that Trevor and Sandra had invented the whole ridiculous story and asked them what the hell they’d expected to gain from it. But before they could answer, Swann had pointed out that the absence of any reports didn’t really prove anything one way or the other.

‘Maybe he hasn’t been gone long enough for anyone to have noticed,’ she had said. ‘Besides, if what these two say is true, it would certainly explain why the spooks have got their oar in.’

Now here’s a guy who doesn’t like his authority being undermined, Trevor had thought as he’d caught the look of thunder which Logan directed at his colleague. But any tirade that might have followed was nipped in the bud when Sandra had launched into the briefest of explanations as to what had led them to their discovery of the dead MP.

After she’d finished, Logan had crossed the floor of the living room and stared out of the window in silence for several seconds. Then he had turned and pointed his finger at Trevor.

‘And you needn’t think this is going to get you off a murder charge,’ he’d said. ‘As soon as we get there and find out you’ve been pulling my pisser, I’m nicking the pair of you for wasting police time. That’ll do for starters anyway.’

‘As soon as we get there?’ Trevor had repeated.

Logan’s laugh had sounded more like an elongated grunt. ‘You don’t think I’m going to let you out of my sight after the merry little dance you’ve been leading me already, do you?’

Trevor’s sister had been adamant that there was no way he was leaving his vandal of a dog behind, and although Logan had been equally resistant to taking her with them, Milly was now wedged between Trevor and Sandra on the back seat of the car as they sped through the streets of Bristol.





CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN



There was little doubt that the favourite colour of Flat 13’s absent occupant was a particularly gaudy shade of purple. Every surface that could be painted purple had been – not only the doors, walls and ceiling, but tables, chairs and even the casing of the television in the corner of the room. The carpet was almost exactly the same colour, and anything unpaintable, like the two-seater settee and the single armchair, was covered in purple fabric.

‘God almighty,’ said Patterson when Coleman had let him and Statham into the apartment. ‘It’s enough to send you blind. – And speaking of which, what’s our friend with the white stick been up to since his chums arrived?’