Chapter 23
It was early December and although Bristol was down in the “soft south” it was cold enough to send any brass monkeys for spare part surgery. Shane Flinders was sat snug and warm in front of a roaring fire in the Lost Ghost public house. The Lost Ghost was a favourite pub of his and many other alcoholics and near alcoholics, as it served only cider, red wine from the barrel, whisky, rum and gin. It looked just like another house in a narrow road of terraced houses running up the hill from the docks. It was one of the few remaining such streets in the city, but about a hundred years ago some one had converted number twenty-three into a pub. It was done to make a living out of the thousands of merchant seamen that in those days had thronged the Bristol waterfront and although there was no longer a sign to identify it as a pub, the Ghost's customers all knew where to find it.
The entire bottom floor had now been turned in to one fair sized room that ran from front to rear. The bar area also doubled as the stock room as the cellar had taken the place of what had been the old scullery and washhouse. The original stone sink and draining board were still in use to wash glasses, while the barrels containing the various alcohols were standing around it on low wooden stands. There being only the one room the street door opened directly into the bar and you were greeted by furniture consisting of the original wooden benches all round the walls, half a dozen small round tables and some old wooden dining chairs. There were about twenty customers in that night, all of them male except for one old woman who was always there in the corner seat and all of them well past forty, except for Shane. The air was thick with a tobacco smoke mixed with wood smoke from the open fire and the smell from the cider barrels. The Ghost was and always had been a serious drinkers pub since the days when it only sold rum and black ale and if nothing else in the last three months since his trial, Shane had become a confirmed drinker. It was the loneliness that did it.
It wasn't his fault. The trial had found him totally innocent of any criminal act. Self-defence was what the jury had said, but people still treated him like he was dog shit. His own parents had thrown him out and had then phoned for the police when he had tried to get back in. His old man had actually left all his clothes in a suitcase in the street, the bastard and him his own flesh and blood. He was now living in some scruffy digs down by the docks, where the landlady didn't mind what time he got in at night or how much he'd had to drink, as long as he paid his rent and didn't cause trouble. He had thought about going back one dark night and smashing up his parents house with his hammer, but he knew the filth were just waiting for the chance to get him. Pig bastards. On top of that nobody would give him a job, not that he had tried too hard to find one and he was reduced to living on social security and whatever he could steal. This morning in the big newsagents in the city centre he had nicked a woman's handbag straight out of the basket on the back of her pram and neither she or the old bag she was gassing to had even noticed. There was only had twenty quid in cash inside it though and half a dozen credit cards. He had tried to sell those here in the Lost Ghost at lunchtime, but the landlord had told him he would be banned if he started pushing stolen gear in his pub, so in the end he had shoved them down a drain.
He drained his pint glass of cider and went back to the bar for a refill. Good stuff this Scrumpy. Still came in big wooden barrels from the local farmers and it was good and strong. Not like that fizzy cat's piss they sold in the off-licence. All bloody gas. He bumped the glass on the counter to attract the Landlord's attention, the other drinkers not even looking up. That was another good thing about the Ghost. People came here to drink and that meant they weren't always trying to start a conversation with you. Right now the pub was nearly full, but the only people talking were the landlord and one of the other regulars. He banged the glass on the bar again.
“Come on then, Charlie. What you got to do to get a drink around here?”
Bald headed Charlie Nesbitt was not a big man, but he was hard. You had to be to run the sort of pub he had. He treated Shane's belligerence with the indifference born of long hours dealing with assorted pissheads and coming over to him took his glass to refill it. As it filled he spoke to Shane in a conversational tone of voice.
“I would go easy with the jar if I were you, Shane. You know the rules in here, young-un. One glass a night and if you break it you have to leave and you don't come back until the next day. And only then if you pay for the breakage.”
Shane glowered at him and deliberately and visibly settled the hammer in its sling under his arm, but Nesbitt was not impressed. He was probably the only person in the bar who hadn't had a drink. Not for ten years in his case and he knew how to handle trouble. That's why he had some strange rules, so that he could avoid trouble. You could be as drunk as you liked in his pub and that was all right with him and he would even help carry you to the door when you wanted to leave. But raise your voice in argument or anger and you were straight out the door and no messing. He put the now full glass down on the bar but did not release it, his other hand held out palm up waiting for the money. Shane rummaged in his pocket and found a pound coin, which he handed over and Nesbitt released the glass and dropped the coin into the till. Shane made his way back to the fire with black thoughts of robbing this place one dark night until he remembered that Nesbitt had a shotgun under the bar and he abandoned that line of thought.
He stayed in the Lonely Ghost until his money ran out at about half past ten when he once more reluctantly staggered to his feet to begin the cold walk back to his miserable digs. His tight cow of a landlady never heated the bedrooms; you had to pay for that yourself by shoving pound coins into the electric meter. His pound coins had now all been converted to cider so it would be a cold room tonight.
Outside in frosty, but clear and starlit night a lazy wind was blowing. Too lazy to go around you it cut right through to the bone. As the bitter chill of the night air hit him full force he pulled the fleece lined hood of his anorak up over his head and then shoved his hands deep into the pockets. He turned into the slight, but freezing wind and started to walk. The Lonely Ghost was set in the old quarter of the city no more than a catapults range away from the law courts and the Bricewell police station, but on the opposite side of the main road up one of the old streets that run up from the docks. The roads up here were all narrow and the footpaths even narrower and they are linked by a maze of snickets and cut throughs, as the locals call them.
The quickest route to Shane's lodging was straight up the hill and turn left, but the sudden cold had produced an urgent desire to urinate, deciding him to walk the few extra yards to a cut through where he could relieve himself up against the fence without attracting attention. Once upon a time he would have just pissed in the street, but the bloody coppers were out to get him now so he had to be more careful. Once in the cut through he was out of the wind and that alone was worth the extra fifty yards walk. This particular alleyway ran behind and between the backs of two rows of terraced houses and was unlit. Fumbling in the dark he undid the lower buttons of his anorak and then struggled to undo the zip on his jeans. This accomplished he stood and watched the steam rise from his stream of hot urine as it hit the cold night air and allowed himself to enjoy the feeling of relief that followed.
He had more or less managed to re-zip his jeans and was working on the buttons of his anorak, when somebody grabbed him by the shoulders from behind and spinning him round slammed him back against the wall of the alley. His head hit the wall hard enough to have caused concussion if it had not been for the lined hood of the anorak and combined with the six or seven pints of cider he had consumed it caused him to suffer some dizziness. He stood there for a few seconds in bemusement, slowly shaking his head and blinking until his vision had cleared. At first he could only make out the outline of the figure that stood in front of him, but as his head cleared he could see a little better. It was a tall and broad shouldered man dressed in a leather jacket and dark trousers. Shane pushed himself off the wall and stood there sof
tly swaying, his voice sounding slurred, puzzled and angry, all at the same time.
“What's the bloody game then, mate? Asking to get your face smashed in, you are.”
What light there was from the stars reflected off the others white teeth as he smiled.
“I don't think so, shithead. I think the best part of you just went over the cobbles.”
Shane's hand went inside his coat for the hammer, but it wasn't there.
“Are you looking for this, shithead?”
Shane looked down at his hammer resting lightly in the others outstretched hand. He put out his hand to take it, but it was no longer there to take.
He never actually saw the hammer again, but he probably briefly felt it when it whistled round to hit him on the left hand side of his head just above the ear with the full force of Mitael Khorta's arm behind it. He was slammed backwards a second time into the wall and then bounced back forwards again in time to meet a second blow, squarely on the side of the jaw, that completed the bloody destruction of the left hand side of his head. The body teetered for a bit and then smashed face down onto the cobble stones of the cut through into its own, now cooling, puddle of urine and was still. Khorta bent down and examined it briefly before placing the hammer into Shane's right hand, carefully closing the fingers around it with his own, gloved hands. He straightened up again, studied his handiwork briefly and then was gone. It was roughly five months since Trevor Morton had laid face down on a pavement in a similar fashion.
It was the next day in the late afternoon when John Morton received a phone call on the private line in his office from the Chief Constable. He listened to what the other had to say and when he answered, did his best to hide the fierce exhilaration that the news had given him. The bastard was dead. Shane Flinders was dead. The Chief Constable went on to explain that he realised that as a council member Morton would be horrified that another brutal murder had been committed in the city that they both loved and that normally he would not pass on details of cases in this manner. However, under the circumstances he felt that the least he could do was to let him know that the person who had ended the life of his son would never take another. The fact they both belonged to the same Masonic lodge was never mentioned.
Morton thanked him and put the phone down. He needed to share his satisfaction with someone and thought about phoning MacAllister, but realised that it would be foolish to do so. They had agreed that once they had given Khorta back his car and MacAllister once again had the pistol, Morton's part in the whole affair had ended when he had given MacAllister his share of the contract money. Khorta may have guessed he was involved and was supplying some of the cash, but he would never be able to prove it, as MacAllister had been his only contact. Still, he would have dearly loved to let someone know that he had avenged Trevor's killing. This time when he reached for the whisky bottle it was for celebration instead of consolation. He poured himself a generous measure and then lifted his glass in salute.
“You can sleep easy now, Trevor. We got the bastard.”
MacAllister heard it on the midday local television news and knew that the Bricewell would have been like a hornets nest this morning as they all tried to find out who had a motive for a revenge killing of this sort. He knew John Morton would come under scrutiny and he hoped to God he had managed to hide the movement of the money he had contributed as well as he said he could. It had been nearly three weeks since he had given Khorta back his car and some ten thousand pounds of the bank raid money to cover his expenses and in all that time he had heard nothing. The silence from Khorta had not surprised him as they had agreed that unless there was a problem they would not meet again until the job was finished and it was time to pay up. However, he had wondered a couple of times if the Somalian might not just sell the car and do a runner with what he had. Flinders death was reassuring as it meant he had judged his man correctly. Khorta needed the money.
As for himself he was fairly busy. The estate agents thought they might have a buyer for his house. The potential client was a Frenchman that was coming to Bristol to work in the joint aerospace industry. He did not know of the death of Jean MacAllister by suicide and MacAllister was fairly confident that the estate agents would forget to mention it. The reason given for the house being a little below market price was that the owner was about to emigrate and would take a couple of thousand less for a quick sale.
In the Bricewell several things had changed. Firstly there was a new Detective Inspector in charge of the CID office. Peter Grinton, a Mancunian of thirty-five, was a steady and thorough man who was obviously destined to go much further. He has taken over quietly and gave no indication that he knew anything about the man who had previously sat at his desk or of anything that had happened to him. Any mention of their former Guv’nor by the members of his squad was ignored and it was patently obvious that he considered that chapter of Bristol CID's history closed. Not being stupid his new staff soon got the message.
Marcus Lomax, delighted to find that his new inspector was a book soldier, had immediately become a disciple; he had had enough of mavericks and had been undismayed to see MacAllister get the golden bowler. In fact the only cloud left on his horizon was that his new sergeant was definitely not his biggest fan and he had to walk around as if the office was sprinkled with broken glass.
Jackie Ward was also happy. She missed Clive Sayers, but knew he deserved his rise to Detective Inspector even if it did mean he was now transferred to Heathrow Airport of all places. She knew his wife had been half pleased at his promotion and half terrified of moving to the big city, her being a country girl from Taunton. Janet's own promotion to Detective Sergeant had come right out of the blue and if she closed her eyes she could still relive the pleasure she had taken in the shocked look that had crossed Lomax's face when Bill Reid made the announcement. That would teach him to be more careful with his chauvinism in future. Still, he was part of the team and she knew she must do the right thing by him if she wanted his support when the time came. For the moment though, she would let the chauvinistic sod sweat for a bit.
The new Guv’nor seemed all right even if he was from Manchester and a bit of a stickler for the rules, so no one would be allowed to actually call him Guvnor, but she missed MacAllister. He used to do some crazy and unorthodox things, but by God he used to get results. Life had never been dull when he was around. She wondered if he had heard about the killing of Shane Flinders and also wondered if he had any ideas about who might have done it. Her hand was reaching out for the telephone to call him when she stopped herself. The Guv’nor had suffered enough and she had no right to use him as a free advice line. After all, she was a Detective Sergeant now and had better start acting like one. She would wait until they had completed some more inquiries and then she would sit down and brainstorm through what they had with Marcus Lomax and Frank Lintsey. That's what the Guv’nor would have done.
Up in his ivory tower on the seventh floor Bill Reid was a happy man. With one fell swoop he had cleaned up the CID office, got it working by the book and nobody had got hurt, except MacAllister that was and he had asked for it. He had personally arranged Clive Sayers promotion in order to transfer him and his allegiance to MacAllister out of the Bricewell. Janet Ward's loyalty he felt he had now bought with a promotion that was probably overdue anyway and his new Detective Inspector was as ambitious as he was and as a consequence would not rock any boats. MacAllister's own immediate boss, Chief Inspector Jason Roper, had also been forced to retire early due to long term health problems and he too had been replaced, so in the space of two months he had got a brand new CID office and the rest of the station had been made aware of who was in charge here. As he stared out of his window over the rooftops he was fairly satisfied with life.
In the Lost Ghost that lunchtime there was an unusual amount of chatter and it wasn't just that one of its customers had met a sudden and violent end. After all, alcoholics are far more susceptible to walking under a bus, falling down the sta
irs or even into the docks and the Ghost had regularly lost customers in this fashion during the hundred years or so since its inception. But this was murder most foul and within fifty yards of the front door. Why, old Maggie Dyer had actually tripped over the body, still lying in a frozen puddle of its own piss, on her way home and had come rushing back to the pub for help and another glass of gin to get her over the shock. Charlie Nesbitt had reluctantly phoned the police and then none of them had got home for hours until they had all made a statement. In this pub at after eleven o'clock in the evening that had been quite an undertaking, as by that time most of its clientele would have had trouble spelling their names. However, by the evening session the customer’s attention would again focused firmly on the important business of drinking and within another twenty-four hours few of the customers would remember the dead youth.