Never Back Down Read online

  Never Back Down

  Long Time Dying

  Private Investigator Crime Thriller series book 4

  Solomon Carter

  Great Leap

  The Long Time Dying series

  by Solomon Carter

  Thrilling adventures featuring Eva Roberts & Dan Bradley, private detectives

  Series list - in reading order

  Out With A Bang

  One Mile Deep

  Long Time Dying

  Never Back Down

  Crossing The Line

  Divide and Rule

  Better The Devil

  On Borrowed Time

  The Dirty Game

  Only Live Once

  Want more Long Time Dying? Sign up for the mailing list and receive the free “inside story” to Eva and Dan’s adventures at www.solomoncarter.net

  Never Back Down

  Long Time Dying 4

  Dan Bradley is missing and former business partner and ex-lover Eva Roberts knows there is only a short window of time before he will be killed.

  Now left working with only Devon Parker, her old boss, and young assistant Jess, Eva has to discover which enemy kidnapped Dan and hinders her at every turn. Eva and Jess must call upon resources they never knew existed, resorting to acts of extreme courage and extreme violence. Eva has never taken on enemies this dark or powerful. Never before has Eva had so many foes ranged against her. The odds against them are immense. Chances of success are slim. And the clock on Dan’s life ticks away with every passing moment.

  Can Eva and Jess evade their motorcyclist pursuer? Can Jess handle the pressure of a fight to the death? Will Eva find Dan before it’s too late? Everything is against Eva, but if Dan is to survive, she can Never Back Down...

  One

  No one except Eva and Jess would have even noticed it, but Dan had gone missing. No one except them and those who had taken him. That was the scariest thing about the life of someone on the edge of society. Their life value decreased to next to zero. They became invisible. So when they disappeared, usually there was no one there to notice, let alone care. And if it wasn’t for Devon Parker’s re-appearance, Eva would have given up on him without knowing. He would have been gone without a trace. But there was a significant trace. The abandoned Escort at the petrol station in Rayleigh was the biggest trace they could get. And when the police called her office, she hadn’t spared a second to think before a lie tumbled out of her own mouth. “It belongs to my colleague, Jess. She and her boyfriend had a row, that’s all. I think he borrowed her car and left it there.” That statement could have caused many other little problems, but thankfully the policeman was willing to let this one go, provided they came to get the car. Her reaction freaked her out and quietly pleased her too. She had been able to lie even through the shock of discovering that Dan had gone missing. She was able to do exactly what Dan had done - what she had vilified him for - lying to keep her work on track. Okay, it wasn’t exactly the same thing. But it was close. So many factors seemed so unreliable and unpredictable, including Eva’s own behaviour.

  Eva asked Jess to stay working past home time. She had Jess call the current clients to inform them that they were working on a very serious case demanding all their attention, saying Eva Roberts would call them within three days and make their job a priority. It wasn’t a great move, as every client always expected their job to be the top priority. No one had complained yet. Now Eva had played her joker with the clients, it would be the first and only time they could do so without losing business. The other reason for keeping Jess on was because Eva trusted Jess more than anyone else in the world. With the loss of Dan, she needed to keep the rest of what she had close by… both in order to protect Jess and to keep her own sanity. Jess had to lie to her mother, saying she was doing an administration training course in Birmingham for three nights. The truth was they didn’t know where they would be.

  They retrieved the abandoned Escort from the petrol station and stayed quiet about the missing person. Something very bad had happened and Eva needed time to work on it. There was too much at stake to involve the police without thinking of the consequences first. Was this a kidnapping? Did it happen the same way as Remy in Leathermarket? Would Dan be dead by now? Or would there be a ransom? Would they be able to negotiate? Eva just couldn’t take the risk, so she lied again when they picked up the car. The police were condescending and aggressive to Jess because of her lack of compliance in bringing the alleged culprit to book, but that wasn’t the worst of it. The car was back, and it was empty. There was no sign of anything belonging to Dan.

  Parker repeatedly insisted on meeting in a London restaurant. This time, Eva insisted on bringing Jess. Thankfully the restaurant was not as cloyingly pretentious as the first. “The noise is good,” Parker explained, “It helps shroud our conversation.”

  The restaurant was on a side street near Moorfields Eye Hospital. The area was a mixture of claustrophobically high buildings and narrow streets, Victorian London grime, with some vague nods towards a modern artistic style. Back in Eva’s student years, the place had been described as up and coming; drawing students into its midst to make Shoreditch and Hoxton both fashionable and off-putting to everyone else. Eva reckoned Shoreditch would always remain up and coming until it became something else, never reaching the stated goal the Estate Agents advertised. Parker had lived and worked here all his life and its hotchpotch nature suited the perpetual stains on his ties. He was a face here; a local, a somebody. The head waiter of the pretentious restaurant, a man with a supersized quiff and tight cut extra-long sideburns - a man called Yves - seemed to be a friend. Regular customers were treated as friends everywhere. It was a principle of good business. But that’s all it was, Eva was sure. They ate bistro salad starters with small purple leaves, big torn croutons and slivers of sun-blushed tomatoes with long, wide curls of parmesan cheese. Then they ate a large chunk of lamb in a thick salty fruit sauce which the menu called a jus, a word Eva didn’t like, in spite of its MasterChef connotations. To Parker’s annoyance, Jess insisted she wouldn’t eat baby sheep because it wasn’t fair to kill them so young. Parker nodded, but his eyes leaked a bucketful of patronising contempt for Jess’s youthful naivety.

  “I never believed him, Parker. I thought I did, but when I found out that some of it was true, I knew I hadn’t ever believed him at all.”

  Parker nodded emphatically. “I knew it. Dan knew it too. But both of us know it is hard to believe in conspiracies. But this conspiracy theory was true.”

  “I thought he was full of crap,” said Jess. “I knew he’d ruined the business and almost finished Eva off. That was just when I joined. I thought he was a liability.”

  Parker’s body language showed that he barely regarded Jess’s presence. He faced Eva alone, with Jess occupying one side of a square two-person table. Parker’s eyes met Jess’s for a moment, and he nodded once, acknowledging her existence. Just.

  “Well, now it’s happening. So what are we going to do?”

  Eva was hoping Parker would take the lead, but his watery eyes were holding back and examining her. She coughed and let her thoughts surface. “Well… Devon, you thought that Gillespie was the culprit. But your theory has problems, it’s illogical too. Gillespie told me about an outsourcing unit who do the dirty work for various gangs. But he said he would never employ such people.”

  “And you believed him? Where’s the logic in that?”

  “Hang on. I like common sense, Devon. He doesn’t need to employ strangers. He has a whole army of Roe Park travelling families behind him, ready to wade in at a moment’s notice. I’ll bet the fees are cheaper, and it’s easier for him to control or punish the Travellers as he virtually lives on site.”


  “That’s one interpretation, Eva. Or it could be that he wants this other work kept hushed, so he can’t involve Traveller folk. It may be private work or a secret pleasure, who knows. Have you met his wife, for God’s sake? The man is evil, no matter what you think of him and his stories.”

  “A real charmer, isn’t she? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a friend of his, Devon, but Gillespie as the culprit – it just doesn’t make sense to me.”

  “Trying to go the shortest route may not get Dan out of this situation, Eva.”

  Jess’s face flushed. She had heard enough of the old man’s patronising drivel. “But you sitting there stuffing your face in a poncey restaurant won’t help much either, will it?”

  “I always think best on a full stomach, my dear.”

  “You must do an awful lot of thinking,” said Jess. Dagger stares were exchanged. Eva ignored them and carried on.

  “You have to take the obvious roads, and eliminate them until you come to the less obvious routes. That’s how we do it, Devon. That’s what we’re doing here. Jess is right - we’re running out of time. They kidnapped Remy - have you seen him this week?”

  Devon shook his head and drank some of his dark brown ale.

  “See? We need to go after the most likely target, but with our wits about us. I think as unlikely as it seems, we have to accept Dan’s conspiracy was real. We have a motive for Dan’s involvement all along – it was the Marka case, and how Dan went after him not just once, but twice; the second time without any evidence. We don’t know the other names that are on this list – we don’t have a copy, but we do know the people on it have disappeared. And you said they ended up killed. If that’s right, we have only Marka left to go for. He’s vindictive, a tyrant, and he using an outsourced gang as a way to protect himself from any comeback if the bodies are found. That’s my guess.”

  “That sounds reasonable,” said Jess. Devon tutted. Jess ignored him. “It seems to me we could do with knowing what Remy was up to – what his connection to Marka was, if there was any. That way we could prove the link.”

  Eva nodded. “And it would be good to find another name on that list. If we had that, we might be able to confirm the Marka link twice over.”

  “But you can’t, Eva. The list existed for Remy, in his hands and in his head. It was his and he is gone. Which means you won’t find any other record of a list of targets. We have the hand we are dealt with, Eva. I’ll tell you what I see. Correct me if I am wrong. Dan has been free from prison for nearly a year. I know he had some dealings with Gillespie, yet none with Marka, since his release. In fact, if you add in his prison time, he had no dealings with Mr Marka or his employees for nearly two years. That’s considerable. Why would a mad Russian with a punishment fetish even work on a man at his very lowest ebb? Marka had proven his point twice over by besting Dan and sending him down. On the other hand, we know that Gillespie has an interest in the Kingsmere tower blocks and the central Southend area where Dan’s been holed up. Gillespie has been struggling with the likes of Galvan, and the Mitkin brothers there for years now. Suddenly Galvan is out of the picture, probably helped along the way by Gillespie and his cronies. You told me Dan has been throwing his weight around in the area. Gillespie would have known this and he wouldn’t have liked it. I’ll bet he had people in the soup kitchen watching Dan. Then the fool takes on the Mitkin brothers by himself, single-handed, along with the Somalis they work with. Those Somali gangs make pincushions of each other without blinking. Where they grew up, murder is second nature to them, life is cheap. They don’t care a jot about killing, and yet Dan took them on. Gillespie will have known about that. If Gillespie is going to invade a new patch, he will put some men on the ground and eliminate threats in advance. So, he finds out there is one tough cookie called Dan Bradley who can’t be controlled, so he removes him from the equation. It could be that this mysterious list isn’t about Marka’s revenge, but is about Gillespie’s position. Remove these threats and his domination of the area solidifies.”

  “I was there, Devon. While Dan was busy disappearing at a petrol station, I was face to face with Brian Gillespie. There was no sign that he had anything to do with this.”

  “But how do you know? Because he told you? Really, Eva. The man is a liar and a killer.”

  “I know. I saw it in his eyes. But I know he was telling me the truth.”

  “With all due respect, Eva, you don’t know a thing. You think you know something based on what you felt at the time.”

  “That’s wrong, Parker. Getting the truth from someone is more than intuition. It’s about connection, reading their eyes, listening to the voice, getting your bearings with their body language. I’m telling you, but you should already know this.”

  “Eva. We don’t know the reason why the list was made. We don’t know who wrote it. But we know for certain it belongs to someone who is a serious threat and eliminates people connected to it, such as Remy, such as Dan. Am I right so far? And Dan has not been a danger to the Russian for two years, but he must have appeared on Gillespie’s radar and he caused problems in Essex. Marka is London-centric, a man who wants to be an Abramovich style oligarch. He wouldn’t bother with Essex and a small target like Dan. I know criminals with Marka’s mind-set. It is all about glamour and presenting an upscale image. Marka would not be one for demeaning himself by attacking a homeless person, even if he is despicable enough to have people killed at the drop of a hat. It’s a power and image thing. It just wouldn’t fit what he is aiming for.”

  Devon’s words had the ring of truth. She glanced sideways towards Jess, who sat looking serious with anger in her eyes. Jess pushed her lunch plate away noisily. It was still much more than half full. Eva nodded, letting her know she shared her feelings.

  “So then Parker, what would you do if you were in our shoes?”

  “In your shoes? Easy. You are on the Essex patch, so leave Viktor Marka to me. I’ll do some digging and see what I can find. You keep checking on Gillespie, do some digging until you uncover the connection between Gillespie and Dan. It’s there, Eva. He lied to you, and you believed it. But don’t waste time beating yourself up about it. Gillespie’s a master liar. Just don’t let him do it again. Gillespie is up to something, find out what it is, and you will find out what’s happened to Dan. Mark my words.”

  Eva looked at Jess. “Sounds like a reasonable proposition. But how long do we dig before we do something? This isn’t a crossword, Devon. This is Dan’s life.”

  “I’ve not been the one causing the delay, my dear. We need to dig hard and fast until we uncover something. When we do, we can act. It can’t be done any other way. Doesn’t that appeal to your common sense?”

  It did. And it annoyed the pants off her, but she tried to hide her anger from him. Common sense was one of several methods he employed to win the argument over lunch, because a battle was what it had become. An arm-wrestling match of words and egos. He was right on one thing: if Eva kept digging, she would find a connection between Gillespie and the list. If anyone kept digging long enough, they could prove anything they liked about anything. It was a rule that Eva knew well enough herself. Obviously Devon Parker hadn’t thought her intelligent enough to realise this for herself. But she was all grown up now, not the naïve young girl he remembered dating his private eye protégé all those years ago. And if one thing had strengthened in her, it was her resolve, and her common sense. Dan had said her commitment to common sense, to logic, made her a Vulcan like Spock. But it had also stopped her making many mistakes and earned her a living wage for a decade and more. And as they had finished lunch and bade farewell to the haggard looking duffer in his creased old suit, Eva Roberts was thankful she still had enough common sense to keep her from making another big mistake. They walked through the melee of traffic and noise towards the steps down to Old Street tube station, both women silent and contemplating their next step. Eva decided there and then that far too much time was being wasted. For the next two hours
they would be trapped and wasting time on their journey on the tube and train. But when they arrived back home in Southend, decisions would have been made, the course of action set. Eva’s anecdotal knowledge gave them three days. It was said the first 48 hours of a kidnap situation were the most vital. It meant they had three days to do whatever it took to find Dan. Three days was far more than 48 hours. If he wasn’t home in that time, then part of Eva knew that she may as well have waved him goodbye. It was a part she wanted locked away for as long as she could avoid it.

  An hour and fifty minutes later, they walked out of Southend Victoria station onto the ‘shared space’ pedestrian zone; a confusingly dangerous place where buses curled across pavements past skateboarding teenagers and drunken hobos. Eva wondered about the idea of an accelerating bus sharing space with any stoned teenager on a skateboard. There had already been serious accidents and a fatality in the press. No doubt someone somewhere had taken home an award for ingenious civil engineering design prior to those headlines. Being careful of the buses, skateboards and taxis in the late afternoon sun, the two women marched past the town centre towards the free parking areas out of town where Eva had left her car before the journey. To someone who didn’t know them, Eva could have been a thirty-something teacher to Jess’s teenage schoolgirl. Eva wore one of her usual grey high hem suits and skirts, today a herringbone piece with a straight collared white blouse, which made her hair a more intense red. Jess wore a flouncy skirt and a polka dot top. Eva’s clothes made her seem austere until you saw her pretty aquiline face; Jess’s attire made her five years younger. But instead of the college small talk, they were debating the virtues of notorious criminals Brian Gillespie and Victor Marka. For the sake of preventing being overheard in public, they had settled quickly on using initials instead of full names. Devon Parker came off worst of all in Jess’s opinion.