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The council leader wandered on, unmoved.

  ‘Helena and I have talked this through. We must heed the warnings. We have decided we are pulling out of the deal.’

  Hardstaff came to a halt. He stared fixedly ahead, waited and then pronounced: ‘No, you’re not.’

  ‘We have no choice,’ appealed Yuvraj. ‘Our lives are in danger. Surely you can see that? Both of us have been confronted by a man with a gun and he has already proved that he’s prepared to use it. Helena’s husband was seriously wounded and I consider myself fortunate to have escaped with my life last night. What will he do next time? Will he come after my kids? Someone knows we are not telling the truth about Swarbrook Hill and they’re letting us know that we either come clean or they are coming after us. We’ve done everything you asked of us to push this project through, but this is too much. I’m not prepared to sacrifice my children to…’

  Hardstaff turned suddenly, silencing Yuvraj with a burning laser stare.

  ‘Will you just calm the fuck down?’

  Yuvraj’s head dropped. Helena stood defiantly straight, wanting to show she was prepared to meet his eyes.

  ‘Do I need to remind you what is really at stake here?’ added Hardstaff, softening his tone. ‘This project has been six years in the making. Six years since the developers first approached the council to discuss taking two hundred acres of useless industrial wasteland off our hands and turning it into an idyllic new village on the edge of the city, providing 1,200 new three-, four- and five-bedroomed houses as well as retail units, leisure facilities, health services and a school. We have been through the full process of public consultation, environmental impact studies, geological studies, flood protection assessments – the full fucking lot. This is a one hundred and thirty million-pound project which will create thousands of jobs in its construction, open the way for the council to secure millions of pounds worth of central Government bonuses, generate three million pounds each year in additional Council Tax income and greatly enhance the prosperity of the city as a whole through the additional spending power of the new residents it will draw in. This is all win and all we have to do is make sure there are no more delays. If this project fails to gain planning approval at committee level next month, the developers will appeal, there will have to be a public inquiry which will no doubt recommend to the secretary of state that he grants the go-ahead and all that will have changed is that the developer will have seen millions more – tens of millions maybe – disappear down the plughole through wasted time. And that’s the best-case scenario. Who could blame them if they don’t just decide to pull out altogether?’

  He paused, letting his words seep through, and glared menacingly.

  ‘The developers approached me to recruit key council officials to make sure the planning application gets through committee with no further hitches. I’ve got the Cabinet on my side – I can handle the Cabinet – but the reports you two put to the committee will be crucial and the developers have been prepared to pay us a lot of money to make sure your reports are persuasively in their favour. Should they have to play it that way? No, of course they shouldn’t. The planning committee should be falling over themselves to grant approval, but we all know there are too many fuckwits on this council who will gripe, object and block just because they don’t like big businesses or because somebody has suggested that a colony of rare newts might be inconvenienced by building on this site. We cannot allow those people to carry other gullible committee members with them in the vote. We personally stand to make a lot of money from this and, let’s be candid here, that is an attractive prospect, but if this planning application fails to win approval the first time we have broken the terms of our agreement and we make nothing. That is the stark truth. Remember that the next time you come to me with talk of getting cold feet but also remember this.’

  He leaned forward, ready to drive home the weight of each of his next words with a jab of his forefinger.

  ‘We are doing nothing wrong.’

  The old statesman stepped back, satisfied he had nailed another keynote speech.

  ‘Are we though?’

  Hardstaff cocked his head towards Helena, who stared back, challenging him. He glared at her through half-closed eyes, but she was determined to make her point anyway.

  ‘Are we doing the right thing? Should we be recommending to the committee that they grant planning approval?’

  Hardstaff snorted disparagingly. Yuvraj moved to put a stalling hand on her arm but she shrugged him off.

  ‘I think we all know that this is a troubled site. The surveys have found higher than acceptable traces of asbestos, arsenic, lead, radon gas – we would be exposing whoever buys houses on this development to major risks of cancer and God knows what other nasty health complications. And what about the mines? There’s a maze of old coal seams under this site, full of toxic gases and dangerously polluted water that could be disturbed and not only provide major health hazards to anyone living there but it could get into the local eco system and poison the land and water for miles around. And that’s without taking into account the historic unrecorded mine workings that the Coal Authority says we might also have to deal with. How can we, in all conscience, report to the planning committee and say: “everything’s fine, go ahead,” when there are still so many serious issues to address before approval should be granted?’

  ‘Might be risks, could be problems – if we lived our lives to those rules, we would all be too scared to get out of bed in a morning. Look, if there are real concerns, we can attach conditions in the approval and then the developer will have to…’

  ‘Have to what?’ Helena interrupted. ‘They promise: “sure, we’ll do it” but no one would be there to make sure it was done properly. They would effectively become self-regulating. Where’s their incentive to make sure the site is completely safe unless we delay approval until they do?’

  ‘That’s enough,’ snapped Hardstaff. ‘We’ve been through all this health and safety bullshit with the previous Head of Planning and Regeneration and it caused us months of stalling. That’s why we had to get rid of him. I used my influence to get you into the post because Yuvraj assured me that not only were you a highly capable young officer but that we could rely on you to do what was necessary. You knew what you were getting into when you agreed to accept the deal on the table. It’s too late to back out now. You’re in this up to your neck, Ms Morrison, and I’m sure you are fully aware that corruption in a public office is a serious offence.’

  ‘Are you threatening me?’ she glared.

  ‘I’m pointing out that we are all too far down the road to turn around and head back now. Just bear that in mind the next time you’re bothered by your conscience.’

  ‘Perhaps we should all take a breath,’ said Yuvraj, stepping in to defuse the mounting antagonism between his two colleagues. ‘Maybe we were a bit hasty in saying that we were pulling out.’

  Helena felt a flash of anger but suppressed her instinct to rebuke him for his betrayal.

  ‘But we still have the very real issue at hand of a man with a gun who knows our business and might just blow this whole thing apart, however united we are.’

  Hardstaff tipped back his head, ready to pass judgement.

  ‘So, what do we know? We have a rogue man who knows where to find both of you and has, so far, fired one shot – possibly accidentally, as I understand – and has followed up by sending a wreath by way of a crude symbolic warning. Have either of you any cause to believe this individual has solid information of our agreement?’

  Helena was stony-faced and conceded nothing.

  ‘Not as such, but…’ offered Yuvraj.

  ‘No written or verbal confirmation? No actual threat to expose us?’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘I think he has nothing. I think maybe we are dealing with someone who has a broad objection to the Swarbrook Hill development and understands the function of councils well enough to know that you two are key players in the pro
cess. Either that, or he is in possession of a small amount of information but cannot prove a thing. If he could prove it, he would have plastered it all over social media, taken it to the papers, TV, radio, because this type of person loves to be heard and if he’s not even willing to put a conspiracy theory out there, it means he has nothing on us. He’s trying to scare you into making a mistake – doing something rash. He’s fishing. What do we know about him?’

  ‘Helena’s husband got the best look at him, isn’t that right, Helena?’ Yuvraj prompted, attempting to draw her into the conversation, but she was having none of it. ‘He said the man had his face covered but that he was smaller than average – only about five feet. The man I saw was about the same height, which is why we think it was the same man. I didn’t see his face either.’

  Hardstaff’s eyes narrowed. About five feet tall. Yuvraj was right about one thing, there aren’t many grown men about who are around that sort of height. He could think of only one.

  ‘That fucker!’ he spat. The venom in his words took both Yuvraj and Helena aback.

  ‘Do you think you know who it is?’ queried Yuvraj.

  ‘I might,’ Hardstaff growled. ‘Some little fucker who belongs to some piss-pot environmental protection group and has a vendetta against me because of that business with the tree felling a couple of years back. I bet he wants to rob me of my legacy project. He knows he can’t get to me, but he thinks he can scupper my plans by getting at you two. That’s what he’s doing. He’s trying to kill the project just so that I don’t get the final credit I deserve for the crowning glory to a lifetime of service to this city. This is personal. He’s out to get at me.’

  There was a stunned silence between them as Hardstaff smouldered and the other two attempted to grasp what he had said.

  ‘Can you be sure it’s him?’ ventured Yuvraj at last.

  ‘I trust my gut,’ said Hardstaff. ‘It’s him.’

  ‘So, what do we do? Should we have him arrested?’

  Hardstaff pondered the suggestion. ‘We can’t take that chance just in case he does have anything. I’ve got a better idea. He thinks he’s got something on us, so we get something on him. I know somebody who can bring us what we want. Leave it with me.’

  Helena stared at the old man. Has he totally lost it? She saw the festering resentment in his eyes and wondered if that was what a lifetime in local politics did to a person.

  ‘That’s it?’ she asked. ‘That’s the plan? You dig around for dirt on someone who may or may not be the man who shot my husband and we’re supposed to do what?’

  ‘You do nothing,’ he retorted. ‘You carry on as normal and that means you prepare your case, as required, to recommend to the planning committee that they grant approval next month and, in the meantime, you act as if nothing has happened. If we can draw him out and make him make a mistake, all the better, but, for now, you fulfil your part of the agreement and I’ll do mine. I’m going to shut this fucker Bestwick down.’

  15

  The phone vibrated with a low buzz on the bedside cabinet, chinking gently against the glass ashtray for a third and fourth time before a heavily tattooed arm reached grudgingly from under the duvet to grab it. The arm dragged it back under the cover and, from deep beneath it, came a muffled curse before the sound of the phone was silenced.

  The arm, still holding the phone, reached out again, this time to throw back the bed cover and, in a single, decisive but hardly graceful movement, Wesley Hughes rolled sideways to perch upright, his short legs dangling several inches from touching the bedroom floor. He wore only a tatty pair of boxer shorts, the same he had worn and slept in for at least three days before that, and practically the only part of his petite, pudgy body that was not covered in ink, coarse black hair or both was the top of his head.

  He jumped down from the edge of the bed and took a first laboured step towards the bedroom door as he lifted the phone to his ear with one hand and reached down the front of his boxers for a scratch with the other.

  ‘Yeah?’

  Wesley knew who it was. The name on the display was ‘Foghorn’. As a security precaution – and partly to amuse himself – he had allocated all his business contacts code names of cartoon characters. Most were random but associating Cranford Hardstaff with a blustering, bombastic rooster made his moniker a particularly easy one to remember.

  ‘I’ve got a job for you,’ came the reply.

  Wesley’s movements became gradually less stiff as he walked to the door and eased down on the handle. He paused for a second, as the light of the day poured into the room through the open door, to look back towards the bed to where Beth lay motionless on her side, facing away from him, her bare shoulders exposed, apparently undisturbed. He stepped through the door and closed it behind him.

  ‘You haven’t paid me for the last one yet.’

  ‘You are joking, I presume,’ replied Hardstaff. ‘I only pay when a job is done properly. The dim youth you employed managed to release the mice into the wrong shop. He was meant to infest the café so that I could get it shut down. If I’d wanted him to send them in so that they could chew through the covers of a few old Human League albums, I’d have fucking asked for that.’

  Wesley walked down the stairs and into the front room, switching on the main light and leaving the curtains drawn. A low oval wooden table in the centre of the room was strewn with scattered magazines, unwashed mugs and unopened letters and he sifted through the mess, knocking a TV remote control onto the floor, before he unearthed an opened packet of cigarettes and a lighter. He took one of the cigarettes with his spare hand, put it in his mouth and lit it, drawing deeply so the end glowed red and the paper crackled as it was burned away. He held in the lungful until he felt its first stimulating tingle before releasing the smoke across the room.

  ‘Out of curiosity, how did he manage to fuck up such a simple job? The instruction was that there were four shops in a block and he was to release the mice into the second one from the left. Where was the scope for error in that?’

  The failure had angered Wesley too. His reputation was built on reliability. He didn’t make mistakes. It was not unusual for him to bring in others – people he could trust – to assist in the fulfilment of contracts if they had skills he lacked but this had appeared such a straightforward job that he had handed it to one of the younger guys he sometimes used for fetching and carrying. That kid would not be given a second chance. Wesley did not accept incompetence and had made his feelings plain to the kid. He did not want to give bloated buffoons like Hardstaff the excuse to bad-mouth him again.

  ‘He approached the shops from the back and didn’t work out that the second from the left looking at the block from the front was the second from the right from the rear. He won’t be getting any more work from me.’

  ‘I should bloody hope not! Why the hell did you use him in the first place?’

  Wesley felt his temper rise and took another deep, calming drag on the cigarette.

  ‘Are you going to tell me what this next job is or not?’

  Hardstaff muttered to himself on the other end of the line before he felt ready to issue his instructions.

  ‘The target is the same,’ he said. ‘Because your minion couldn’t tell his left from his right, I still need him taken care of. I need you to get to him this time, rather than his café. He’s proving an inconvenience to me by getting involved where he shouldn’t and making out as if he has information he can use against me. I need you to find out how much he knows and make sure he keeps his mouth shut from now on.’

  Wesley wandered to the sofa and sat down.

  ‘What are we talking? Do you want him roughing up and threatening to keep him quiet? Does he have family?’

  ‘How would I know if he has fucking family? Everybody has family.’

  Wesley leaned to reach a glass beside the sofa and flicked ash into it, waiting for the voice at the other end of the line to come up with a more constructive suggestion.
r />   ‘I’m tempted to suggest violence but I’m not sure it’s the right option for now. Not until I know what he has. I want something that gives me a hold on him, but I don’t want to make him a martyr. I don’t want him showing his bruises on TV. We need to come up with something more subtle.’

  Subtle. Valerie does subtle.

  ‘I think I know someone.’

  Hardstaff waited, expecting details.

  ‘Go on,’ he prompted, finally.

  ‘A woman who has done jobs like this before. She’s very persuasive. She lures them in, drugs them and gets them to tell her everything without them realising it. If you want material to guarantee this guy’s future co-operation, I believe she also offers a video option.’

  ‘I like it!’ said Hardstaff. ‘Drug him up to the eyeballs, get the information and then film him handcuffed naked to a bed while your associate flogs him with a whip and feeds him slices of pork pie. Let’s see what that does for his credibility with his eco-mentalist friends!’

  Interesting. Wesley raised his eyebrows. Hardstaff seemed to have grasped the concept disturbingly quickly.

  ‘Something like that,’ he said.

  ‘Sort it. I need it done quickly. And don’t fuck it up this time.’

  Hardstaff ended the call. Wesley took a last drag on his cigarette and dumped the butt in the glass.

  What an arsehole.

  He stood and wandered towards the table again, picking up the cigarettes and the lighter. He lit another. The chilliness of the front room made him crave a return to the cosy warmth of the bed and he climbed back up the stairs.

  Beth was awake now. She was on her other side, facing him, propped up with her head resting on her open palm. He dropped the cigarette packet, the lighter and the phone on to the bedside cabinet and climbed back into bed.

  ‘Give me one of them, would you?’

  He leaned to pick up the packet and lighter and tossed them idly on to the duvet between them without a word.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, sarcastically, and retrieved them.