He jabbed Grafton in the chin with the gun barrel, knocking him onto the sofa. ‘Take a seat.’
All three captives were in a line on the sofa, two of them terrified, but one of them smiling. Especially when Mick took off his mask. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Grafton announced, ‘meet Detective Chief Inspector Michael McDevitt, Metropolitan Police, on his last night as an employed man.’
He was grinning like a man who thought he was in control. Dave was looking nervous: out of the corner of his eye Mick could see the shotgun barrel shivering. Mick had unmasked himself, and there was a chance Grafton could work out who his accomplices were. The comeback would be swift, deadly.
Except it wouldn’t. Mick had removed his mask in order to give himself that extra push. Now that Grafton knew who he was, this could no longer be just a scare move. Mick had planned it that way all along.
Nobody moved for a second or two. A frozen scene, neither side wanting to make the next move. Then there was a crash from upstairs, and a shout – ‘NO YOU DON’T, YOU BITCH!’ – and Grafton tried to stand. Mick pushed him back down with a hand. And then the woman leaned forward, and Mick shifted his aim and fired. Just like that. She sat back nice and neat after that.
Dave grabbed Mick’s arm, shouted something like ‘STOP’, and Mick staggered back. That was the cue for Grafton to shift. Not to do what you might expect of a violent career criminal and fight his attacker, and not to do the doting husband thing and try to help his wife. No, Grafton’s purpose and concern was all Ronald Grafton. He was up and running, and the other guy was right behind him, both headed for the back door.
Mick grabbed the shotgun from Dave and followed, fast, calling back: ‘Find Brad, kill the wife.’ At the living room door, he lifted the shotgun and aimed. The hallway was narrow, and Grafton and the other guy were belting along single file.
He pulled the trigger, still running.
Seconds later he was past the dead body on the floor and through the hallway where he stopped at the kitchen door. Grafton had slipped while trying to turn and now he got up slowly, facing Mick, eyeing the shotgun. The back door was to his left, but he backed off, hands up, until he nudged a wine rack on the wall. Mick stopped just feet away. Grafton’s eyes told it all: he knew he wasn’t walking away from this.
‘I have money,’ he pleaded. ‘Here. All yours. And I forget about tonight.’
Raising the shotgun to Grafton’s face, Mick smiled.
And now, he smiled again as he remembered his final words to his long-time enemy. Good memories. In front of him, on the old coffee table in this grimy flat where he was hiding from the world, was a collection of newspapers he had picked out of bins last night. The story was in every single one. He’d heard it told a dozen ways already, but he was still eager to find out what some of the people connected to him had to say. His good old dad had defended him:
Now listen good, and then piss off from my face or I’ll smash that camera over your head. I’ll say this once. My son got his world cut apart, and the system let him down. It was the system, the way it hunts the small fish and lets the big players walk around untouched, that’s what turned my son. And turned he was, because he was a lovely boy and a fine young man. He was a senior detective, for Christ’s sake. He was Flying Squad twenty years ago, back when those guys were all just about crooked. He was clean as a whistle. Okay? So you arseholes ask me if I knew I’d raised a monster? Piss off, okay? The system made the monster, not me. The system let that bastard Ronald Grafton off the hook, literally get away with murder, and my son had just had enough. He did this country a favour, but now it wants him where it failed over and over to put people like Ronald Grafton. This government pays a budget of three billion to the Metropolitan Police each year, and they couldn’t get this guy. My son did it off his own back. And for bloody free! He wasn’t even on the clock! Bloody unpaid overtime! Let every cop work that way, criminals would go the way of smallpox. God bless my son.
Brad’s partner had done the same for his lover:
You’ve got it all wrong, I’m afraid. I know my Brad, and I know he wouldn’t have been involved in this unless he was coerced. Just take a look at the things they’re saying this disgraced detective did, and then tell me he wouldn’t have blackmailed my Brad and others into doing his bidding? Brad might have been a former criminal, that much is well-documented, but the word to focus on here is former. He put his shameful past behind him. He was a changed man. Believe me, I lived with him for months, I knew him better than anyone, and I’m telling you that Brad, if he did these things, did them because he was forced to. I think the detective threatened to harm me: I would be hurt if Brad didn’t help him on this daft and bizarre dark justice mission of his. When you find Brad, ask him. I’ll bet that’s the truth of it.
But that was because they had been blind to the truth. No so with Dave’s wife. Mick hadn’t realised that Dave had told his wife everything. Her outlook had made for surprising reading:
You pay for work done, don’t you? Hire a painter, he paints, you pay. What happens if you don’t pay? You get in trouble. So Ronald Grafton should have expected trouble, shouldn’t he? And then he cuts them loose. What did he expect? These weren’t painters, were they? Hardened criminals. Ten grand each, and you don’t stuff hardened criminals, not my Dave, out of ten grand, not even if you’re Ronald Grafton. He’s lucky they didn’t go straight to Razor Randolph and tell him the score. Hey, Razor, Grafton hired me and a pal to pretend to rob that nightclub, but in reality we were supposed to shoot you dead and make it look like collateral damage. How would that have gone down? Grafton would have been killed a lot sooner. I even told Dave he should do that. I mean, he gets stuffed out of ten grand, and then that bastard Ronald Grafton cuts them loose. He fired, like, ten guys that Razor’s people wanted to investigate. Appearances, he says. Can’t have guys around that Razor’s suspicious of. Got to cut the gangrenous flesh, like that sort of thing. That was his reason? To make it look like he was innocent and trying to help? That’s his damn reason for stuffing my Dave? Appearances? Well, he should have expected a comeback, shouldn’t he? And he got it. But it was all that copper’s idea, you make sure you print that. That McDevitt. Him and Brad Smithfield, two black peas in a pod. Dave only went along with it for the cash. For the money he was owed. And there was no plan to do any killing. You print that, okay? That cop wanted Grafton dead. Smithfield wanted Grafton dead. Dave was only after payment. After what he was owed. It’s no different to a painter stealing your wallet because you didn’t pay. He’s got that right, hasn’t he? I mean, you pay for work done, don’t you?
She had incriminated herself with this talk, and who knows what she faced now. She was just a regular woman, not part of the criminal underworld, not bound by their code of ethics, the them and us attitude to law enforcement. Nikos Avramidis, though, was a criminal who should have known better, but when journalists started offering cash for scoops, he oozed out from under a rock with his mouth far from nailed shut. The reporters had quickly offered him up to his hunters, but not before they got something juicy and damning:
Król just says to me, there’s this woman he’s gotta find. Says it’s for that cop, the one he’s always moaning about. Never really knew the score with him and that cop. Never said the guy’s name, by the way. I know now it’s that weirdo McDevitt. But one day he’s saying the guy’s fucked in the head and has evidence on him. Next minute he’s saying the cop’s in his pocket. I never knew what to think. But anyways, this cop wanted a woman found, and he had the address of someone who’d know, so our job was to go in at night and beat it out of him.