Better the Devil Page 3

  Four

  It was the day after the coffee shop meeting at 707. Now Eva had agreed to help Maggie twice over, she couldn’t back out. From there things moved pretty damn quickly. Less than a day after the coffee shop and Eva was somewhere she could never have imagined. She was miles out of town, stuck in a small house in the countryside. The space outside the overpopulated town was almost frightening. Eva now inhabited a country house with three people who she would never have chosen as friends, and on top of that the house was surrounded by enough open land around it that it may as well have had a moat. As a description, isolated didn’t do it justice. The house had maybe a half acre of overgrown field aroundit. Beyond the field was a tall and unkempt privet hedge on every perimeter. The field gave good cover, offering plenty enough space and time for spotting intruders before they could make it close enough to be dangerous. Thinking strategically distracted Eva from worrying about her client and other housemates.

  After the meeting Jess had not gone easy on her for taking on the case. There was no open criticism, just a lot of pouting and tutting when Eva turned her back. The sighs and tutting were aggravating, but Eva chose to give Jess a break. For once Jess was on the moral high ground, and Eva was in the morass.

  Eva was in the brown hued and musty front room with of the house. Spidery net curtains adorned the windows and the old lady armchairs wore lace on each arm. Eva was uncomfortable, alone and bored. Right now the room was quiet, but the others were in the house – Maggie, Kendra and the man who she saw driving. Eva had been happy to let Jess stay back at the office to sulk. This situation was no place for the innocent, and Eva was no longer that. The loneliness had come upon her because Eva was different to the others. Maggie’s assistants were keen to let her know it. She was a hireling, an outsider and a hired gun. The driver was called Gerrard and she said he was his cousin, one of the few people left who Maggie trusted from the Traveller community. Gerrard was tall, dark-skinned and looked the kind of strongman who could labour a day in all weathers and still be fresh at the end. But his moodiness spoiled his good looks. So far he had ignored Eva all day, speaking only to Kendra and Maggie. Kendra did likewise, going outside for patrols around the edge of the garden. Only Maggie spoke to her, and each time they were alone, the atmosphere got so thick with awkwardness Eva wondered if the air would solidify. All in all, Eva had agreed to help save Maggie’s life, but she didn’t know if she could do it, and badly wanted out. She had no chance of fixing this situation, did she? Not when the whole damn gang were against her from the outset. Only Dan would have known what to do. Even at his most messed up, Dan would have fixed this. But she couldn’t let her mind sink into self-destruction. She had to keep in the game enough to come up with a plan. She aimed to show the others she could handle this.

  Kendra walked past the window in the garden outside. Her eyes connected with Eva and no warmth, no smile passed between them. Eva sighed and sat down by the dark wooden coffee table, a pad and pen open beside her cold coffee cup. She looked at the blank pad, then her eyes re-focused on the sideboard with green and brown wine bottles nestled into the corner of a dresser looking as untouched as the shelf of red leather bound books beside them. Eva nearly smacked her lips. It was two pm. A single glass would have eased her tension… but it was wrong. Even the thought of it was wrong. She looked back at the pad.

  “Look at you,”

  Eva looked up. Maggie sat in the opposite corner of the room by the fold out dinner table which was pressed against the far brown wall, far away from the window. Eva knew the woman had been watching her for a long while. But Maggie hadn’t spoken. The deep Traveller voice came from the man in the doorway.

  “You’ve been silent all day. Do you actually have any idea how to help us? Because if you do, I can’t see it.” The man had an accent like Maggie’s the slight Irish lilt of the Traveller, but his skin was rusty dark. There was something mean about him, and Eva wished she could ignore his troubling good looks, because she already saw the man was never going to be a friend. But still she found her eyes got hooked every time they passed his way.

  “I’ve got some ideas. What have you got?” said Eva, retorting as best she could, blustering her way through her stress. “All you do is walk around looking stressed and ill-mannered.”

  “I’m ready to assist. That’s what I’m here for. Back up. I can handle physical threats. I can handle weapons too. But what can you do if the shit hits the fan?”

  “I’m here to stop the shit hitting anything at all.”

  “Really?” the man made a mocking face and put his hands on his hips. “Tell me how that works, now.”

  “Gerrard!” said Maggie loudly, cautioning him like a child. Even so Gerrard waited for his answer.

  Right now Eva needed to sound convincing to herself as much as anyone else.

  “You want a plan, is that it? That’s what I’m working on here, while you stomp around like a kid who had his toys taken away. If you want to help, back off and let me get on.” She saw he wasn’t satisfied, so she dredged her mind of the half ideas she’d worked on so far.

  “You picked a place out in the sticks to counter any attack. I can see that, like a castle you can defend in a siege. And that’s great, if you want to end up in a siege, but we all have to leave this place at some time, right? And if Brian Gillespie has hired a hit man, he can simply wait until we’re bored, or fed up or complacent- just like an old style siege - then the attacker can pick us off as soon as he likes. But we don’t want that, do we Gerrard? What do we want?”

  There was aggression on his face, tension in his jaw but a glimmer of confusion showing in his face. Maggie watched the show quietly from the side-lines.

  “It’s okay. I’ll tell you what we want. We want a permanent solution. Maggie either needs to have the situation repaired with Brian, to reach a truce, or she needs to be somewhere Brian Gillespie cannot reach her. Think about that. In the first instance, no one could ever believe in a truce struck with Bad Boy Brian, so that only leaves the option of finding a place Brian Gillespie’s people can’t go.”

  “Go on. Keep talking.”

  “She goes abroad,”

  “No,” said Maggie from the corner of the room. “I won’t ever do that.”

  Eva raised her finger to make Maggie hush. “Or we strike a deal with one of Gillespie’s enemies. I know you won’t ever go to the police, Maggie.”

  “You’re being ridiculous, now!” said Gerrard.

  “But we could make a few calls to people who work in Brian’s field. People who have different interests. Maybe conflicting interests, even. After all, isn’t that what he’s done with this North London gangster woman he’s been hanging out with?”

  Gerrard hung his head and shook it in mock disbelief. “I really don’t think we should do that at all. We’ve got enough problems as it is, without changing sides like that. We’ll end up causing a war!”

  “Gerrard, you people are already in a war. This is a fight to the death. Now either you fight smart, or Maggie is going to get picked off as soon as she steps foot out of here. It’s that simple.”

  Gerrard set his face to brooding and stayed quiet.

  From somewhere deep in her desperate mind, Eva had managed to drag something approaching a logical plan. It wasn’t a great plan. After all, she’d never before recommended calling gangsters for help. But there was a first time for everything. And at least now, Gerrard had shut up. He slunk away into the dark hallway and left Eva with Maggie. “I really don’t think we should do that at all.” Gerrard’s words echoed around Eva’s head, which was too lethargic to process much else without help. Eva looked at the bottles. The dusty old wine bottles had labels she’d never heard of, but Eva didn’t care. She needed something to ease the stress. She told herself one glass would ease the burden, but somewhere within she knew she needed much more than that.

  “You must be stressed out of your mind, Maggie. Can I fetch you a drink?” said Eva.

&n
bsp; “Sounds like a plan. I think there’s some wine in the corner over there.”

  “So there is. Do you want white or red? It won’t be cold, but I always prefer the white,” said Eva, picking up a bottle of cheap Sauvignon Blanc with a screw top. In the middle of the dining table there were little stoneware cups with no handles. They would do well enough. Eva poured two cups just shy of the brim and handed one to Maggie. The woman gave her the full hungry-eyed stare and reclined in her chair. The trouble with offering a drink was that Maggie could draw all kinds of conclusions. Eva knew that, but the need for drink won out. Eva joined her old enemy at the table and quaffed half a cup then looked at the rest. She felt better almost instantly and wanted more, but she had to hold back. She sat back, and raised her eyes to find Maggie gazing at her appreciatively.

  Eva responded with a wafer thin smile which offered nothing but acknowledgement.

  “Now we might as well get to know each other, don’t you think?” said Maggie, sipping her cup.

  “Right,” said Eva, feeling sleazy for sinking so low that she engineered a drink with Maggie just to get some relief. Things were getting bad. Eva was doubting herself. Jess was doubting her judgement, and she was trapped with people who wanted either to gobble her up like a cream cake or kick her out of their sight. If this ever seemed like a good idea, it didn’t now. She gazed into the shimmering surface of her white wine, and thought about a way to avoid any more awkward moments with Maggie Gillespie.

  Without Dan, Eva badly needed Jess back on side. Saving Maggie was going to be a big and messy problem. She chewed over all her fears as she looked into her cup. Gerrard’s words still troubled her, as if there was another meaning to what he had said… She worked on his words, sipped her wine and avoided the relentless full beam of Maggie’s lustful eyes.

  Five

  It was after lunch time and Jess was nowhere near the office. She’d heard all about the situation at Café 707 yesterday. Eva told her. The hasty exit. The motorcyclist. None of it sounded good. Eva was getting as bad as Dan and that was saying something. Dan had gotten pretty bloody bad before he did his moonlight flit. But to be fair to Dan, at least he fixed things, levelled things with the skinheads, and saved both their arses before he finally went cuckoo. Dan Bradley was definitely among the most irritating people Jess had met in her short life, but he still had his good points. A fine strong body, an annoyingly arrogant demeanour with a wisecrack for every occasion. And now he was gone, even Jess missed him badly. The agency was creaking, teetering on the brink of collapse because Eva had lost her usually good judgement, had stopped pushing for new work and had ended working up for Maggie Gillespie, of all the damn people in the world. Mad Maggie, the lesbian Medusa with eyes that could turn a girl to stone. The witch with a suntan that never ever faded. Maybe Eva wanted to punish herself for failing. But this was Eva’s second seriously bad client decision in a row. Working for Will Burton and the skinheads had gotten well out of hand, so this was a case of out of the frying pan and into the furnace. Dan had saved their skins last time, but now without Dan, Jess was afraid that Eva was stuffed. Was she being unfair to Eva? Thinking about the old Eva - the one who ran the gauntlet across South London to save her man, then yes, she was being unfair. But since losing Dan, it was a shame to admit it, but the Pinot was taking hold and ruining the woman she’d so respected.

  Eva had told Jess about the hasty exit and the motorbike speeding after Maggie down Southchurch Road. If the person riding that motorbike was a hit man, then they all needed their wits about them. This morning Jess had decided to do a recon of the office before venturing in. After parking her trusty old Escort at the White Hart pub she walked to rest of the way to the office. She walked across the road past the greasy spoon, and kept walking down Hamstel Road. She walked evenly and tried to look unobtrusive. Today she had even toned down her colourful fifties style in favour of cheap modern street fashion, which was hard to pull off with the sparse collection of High Street clothes in her wardrobe. As Jess got closer to the office she walked more slowly, and took frequent careful glances around the street. She deliberately walked straight past the office. There was nothing untoward so she made it up as far as the red brick Primary School, then doubled back, looking at her smart phone screen as if she’d received a text which told her she’d left something at home. It was when Jess turned around she saw the fresh stream of traffic approaching. A few hundred yards back by the old shop which was now the Eva Roberts Agency, a sporty looking motorbike left the traffic and pulled up alongside the office window. The rider was still mounted on his bike. Jess felt a chill on her skin. Was she looking at the killer? The biker peered through the window, moving his head to get the best view through the slatted blinds. Jess walked very slowly and kept watching. The man wore a helmet with the visor down, and a colourful sports style leather jacket, red, yellow and black, to match the colours of his motorbike. The biker looked strong but not bulky despite his leathers and big bike boots. He was business-like and thorough in surveying the office, waddling his bike around to the front window. Jess knew he would see nothing in there. She stopped walking and raised her phone and started texting no one at all just to look busy. She heard the bike growl into life and rev away into the traffic, where it turned right onto the busy Southchurch Road ahead. Immediately she stopped pretending to text, and noticed her violently thudding chest for the first time. She decided not to go back to the office. Jess decided she had a good gut instinct. Maybe she was more like Dan than Eva after all. That moment was the scene of two more decisions for Jess. The Agency, Eva and Jess –needed Dan back in their lives if it was ever going to work again. And after what Eva had gotten herself into this time, Jess was certain they needed Dan’s help if Eva was going to come away unscathed. But how do you find a man who wants to stay lost? Jess had an idea. And it wasn’t standard issue.

  Everyone knew Starbucks had the cheapest office rent in town – free – which was why they sold the most expensive coffee known to man. But in Bucks Jess could drink as slowly as was needed, and the Bucks in Southend felt a whole world away from Southchurch and motorbike murderers. Jess sat with her Grande Vanilla Latte- three sips missing – and was busy dialling her phone. Jess saw two missed calls from Eva on her screen, but didn’t want to return the calls yet. She had nothing to say. The woman was in a self-made bind right now, and in spite of Eva’s plight, Jess was angry. She would call Eva back soon, but not right now. Not until she’d made some progress in pursuing a genuine solution. Typically, they answered the phone just as she sipped her coffee.

  “Can I speak to Gemma Cassidy, please?”

  Jess wiped the foam from her lips while she waited and had to endure listening to the two old farts seated beside her talk about children’s terrible manners in this day and age. Jess wished she could switch off.

  “Gemma Cassidy speaking. How can I help?”

  “You write up all the stuff on the vigilante story, right?”

  “All the stuff? I’ve written about it twice so far. That’s not a huge amount, but yes, I have reported on it.”

  “Come on! I’ve seen those articles and I can even read your excitement. It jumps off the page!”

  “Well, I hope that’s just good writing. I’ll take that as a compliment,” said the reporter, with an edge of a groan in her voice. “So… have you got some information you’d like to share or are you just one more of my adoring fans?” The deadpan humour was everything that Jess didn’t like in strangers.

  “Hmmm. I want to track down this vigilante. I’ve got some serious stuff going on and I think I might need his help. Have you got any ideas about where I might find him?”

  “Are you serious? If I had information like that, I’d be obliged to hand it to the police.”

  “Sure you would. And yes, I’m serious. I wouldn’t be calling you if I wasn’t?”

  “Then why call someone who definitely doesn’t know anything about him. I’m sorry to disappoint, sweetheart, but I’m
not Lois Lane, and from what the police are saying, this guy isn’t much like Superman, either.”

  Patronising, irritating, and brim full of ego. Gee, this reporter woman was going up and up in Jess’s crap-o-meter.

  “Gemma, I just want to find this man because he might be able to save a friend of mine. I’m not looking to get a date with him.”

  “Are you saying your friend is in danger?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not…” Jess could hear the cogs inside the journalist’s heard whirring round and round.

  “Do you want to tell me about that?”

  “Maybe. Maybe if you tell me something to help me locate the vigilante.”

  “You do know the police say this guy might be a complete sicko, a demented psycho, you know that?”

  “Detective Inspector Gary Rowntree said all that, didn’t he? I listen to a lot of people, but when it comes to DI Rowntree, I’ve learned to listen to everyone else instead.”

  “Just who are you? Can I take a name please?” said the journalist.

  “No, not yet. You haven’t given me anything.”

  “Fair enough. If you give me the low down on your friend I’ll give you some extra details.”

  Jess grimaced, then made a friendly sounding “Okay. Deal.”