Chapter Twenty-One
Finn
“Hey, how’s it going?” I glanced up as Professor Andrew Deacon wandered into the front room we used for meetings at Rose Cottage. It had a big Victorian bay window, a locked metal cabinet for weapons, and a large screen on the wall.
“Not great.” He ran his hand through his hair and sat heavily at the head of the table.
“Sorted your shit out with Chelsea?” I asked.
“She’s not an easy woman to reason with. Too fucking clever.” He tapped the side of his head. “Drives me crazy.”
I chuckled and shared a look with Cillian.
“You wouldn’t have it any other way,” Cillian said with a grin.
It was unusual to see Andrew rattled over a woman. He usually satisfied his sexual needs without getting involved, but Chelsea…she’d wriggled her way under his skin big time.
“I guess.” Andrew flicked his hand at the door. “Who else is coming?”
“Phil is getting a sandwich,” I said.
“Always fucking hungry, that bloke.” Andrew huffed.
“And Grant and Dalton are supposed to be on their way.” Cillian slipped on his reading glasses and opened his phone. “I’ll check.”
“Mitch?” Andrew asked.
“He’s running late, but will be here soon.” I tapped my phone. “He’s just messaged.”
“Jamie?” Andrew pulled a gun from the back of his waistband and set it on the table. “I was expecting him to be here already.”
“He is here…somewhere.” Cillian frowned.
Phil wandered in munching a giant ham sandwich that was dripping with mayo. “Jamie is here,” he said through a mouthful. “He bought a bag of clothes for the Romanian girls, he’s taken it up to them.”
Ten minutes later, the full quota of Galahad were seated around the table.
A motley crew of solid strong guys who could all handle themselves with or without a weapon.
There was a fair few sharp minds between us, too, and individual talents like medicine, finance, hacking to name a few.
I was glad to know them, to be part of them.
I wasn’t sure what else Cillian and I would do without Galahad.
The gym was fun, sure, and our business, but this, weeding out the assholes in the world and sending them to Hell…
that was our true purpose. A calling. And when one was disposed of, another always took his place.
“So what did you get from the phone?” Andrew directed at Jamie.
“Not many chains of messaging, seemed he was old school, called people.”
“No evidence then,” Andrew said. “Recognize any numbers?
“There weren’t many, I’m guessing he switched phones a lot, no family from what I could see.”
“Might have had two phones,” I said. “Could have been a burner that we found.”
“Could be the case, but he’d had it a while.
” Jamie shrugged. “He had Candy Floss’s number on there and he’d had contact with her months ago.
Nothing since, didn’t even try and call her.
” He paused then went on. “Interesting for two reasons. He must have known she was dead some other way. Found out from someone.”
“And the other reason it’s interesting?” I asked.
“That meant they weren’t operating independently as human traffickers, they knew each other. They could have shared info, shared trafficked people even.”
I sighed. What was the matter with these people?
“So we can mark Bateman down as the main Romanian contact then,” Cillian said. “With his fingers in lots of pies.”
“Yeah, I’d say so.” Andrew nodded. “And good fucking riddance if that’s the case, too.”
Mitch stepped in, shutting the door behind him. “Sorry, got caught up and lost track of time.” He sat heavily and grinned.
I frowned at him. Mitch didn’t grin. Or he hadn’t for a long time.
“You okay?” Dalton asked him, obviously thinking the same thing as me. “You seem…” He paused. “Different.”
“I’m fucking dandy.” Mitch set his phone on the table, and his smile dropped. “You?”
“Yeah, sure.” Dalton pulled a face in Grant’s direction.
“You talking about Ian Bateman?” Mitch asked. “’Cause I found out something.’
“What?” Grant asked.
“He’d visited Reg Jacks in prison five times over the four years.”
“Ah, so they stayed loyal despite Bateman not giving Jacks an alibi,” I said. Rebecca was a smart cookie; she’d said that might be the case.
“Assholes fart together.” Jamie rolled his eyes.
“And…” Mitch said, “Reg Jacks was the last person to visit Samuel Conner in Bullingdon.”
“Samuel Conner?” Jamie asked. “Who is he?”
“The guy who kicked off, threw acid at another prisoner, so his lawyer had to pay him a visit,” I said, my jaw tensing. “Said lawyer being Rebecca. Our Rebecca.”
“It was a setup,” Cillian went on for me, following my chain of thought, “to get her there. They were obviously thick as thieves. Conner fixed it up so Jacks could grab her outside the prison. When she was alone, vulnerable, then took her to Bateman’s place.”
Phil grunted. “She shouldn’t have gone to the prison.”
“No, she bloody shouldn’t have.” I frowned at him. I hadn’t forgiven him for that mistake yet. Maybe never would.
“What’s Conner in for?” Andrew asked as if wanting to move on from blame.
“Pimping, drug dealing, intent to rob, theft, carrying a weapon that kind of thing.”
“Fucking asshole,” Phil muttered.
“He’s in for a while then,” Grant said.
“Yeah, don’t need to worry about him for decade or two.” Mitch rubbed his hands together.
Andrew studied the group. “The Convicts gave us the initial details about Eastern European women being trafficked, Ranson and his warehouse address came soon after, but this is getting big, guys, and luckily we’re keeping up with shit.”
“Yeah, Albania and Romania have had their gates closed, for now at least, Cillian said.
“Someone will soon fill their shoes.” Grant grunted.
“True, but we’ll be waiting,” Andrew tapped his finger on the table. “And in the meantime, we have Armenia and Kosovo to knock on the head. We don’t want any more girls coming through to be used and abused by these animals.”
“It’s coming with extras, though.” Mitch sat back and folded his arms. “Four bodies at the farm according to the first forensic report.”
“Yeah, there were four, the report is right,” I said. “All burning with the Devil now.”
Dalton turned to Jamie. “How are the Romanian girls doing? I haven’t checked in on them yet today.”
“Much better.” He nodded. “They’ve slept, they’ve eaten, showered. Yeah, I think they’ll be able to make decisions about what they want to do soon.”
“Go back to Romania?” I asked.
“The two that don’t speak English, yes, but Sorenna…I’m not so sure.”
“Why not?” Mitch asked.
“Her homeland is not a good place for her.” Jamie frowned. “But that’s not my story to tell.”
“But she’s told you, Jamie,” Mitch said and raised his eyebrows. “Right?”
“Some of it, yes.” His jaw tensed, and I knew he wouldn’t say more.
He was good at keeping secrets. He had to be.
He took money from his family’s deep pot of gold to fund us when things got tricky financially and he still sat around the dinner table with them and acted as though butter wouldn’t melt.
Andrew stood and paced. “So was there anything else on the phone that might give us a lead to the other dealers? If Bateman knew Candy Floss, maybe he knew them. Maybe they are on his phone waiting for us to call and track them down.”
“That would be convenient,” I said, “we can set up a sting.”
“I’ve compared all the numbers with Ranson’s phone, he had a lot,” Jamie went on. “And there are eight that match. They’re on both phones so perhaps…”
“That could be a good lead,” I said. “Which is what we need.”
“You called them?” Cillian asked.
“No, I wanted to see what you all thought first before I gave them a number they hadn’t seen before. Might spook them into getting another burner.”
“Fair enough,” Mitch said.
“Yeah, call them,” Andrew said, his mouth flattening. “Let’s see what we can get.”
“So what do I say?” Jamie said. “Can I order a woman? Blonde, big tits, please?”
“Yeah, I’d say so.” Phil cracked his knuckles. “Should do it.”
“No,” Andrew said. “That would make them suspicious, there must be a code word or some kind of slang they use.”
“Might be in a message somewhere on those eight numbers,” Dalton said. “Why don’t we run a track on them, see if we get anything useful.”
“I doubt a track will come up with anything, but yeah, let’s do that,” Mitch said. “Send them over to me, Jamie, I’ll get to it, the police database digs deeper into encrypted stuff than these online tools.”
“Will do.”
Andrew’s phone beeped. He picked it up, and his lips tightened.
“Problem?” Dalton asked.
“I need to go.” Andrew stood, scraping the legs of his chair on the floor.
“You do?” Cillian took his glasses off. “Now?”
“Yeah.” Andrew stepped away. “We’re done here, and I’ve got a question to ask a guy who isn’t going to want to say yes.” He stomped to the door, pulled it open. “Wish me luck.” He slammed it closed behind him.
The sound echoed around the room.
I chuckled, and Mitch and Jamie followed suit, the atmosphere instantly lifted.
* * * *
Six Days Later
We’d done the training. Packed ourselves full of protein. Warmed up. And now it was time to take down our opponents.
I hopped on the spot as Phil, our corner man for the day, secured the laces on my gloves. I glanced over at Rebecca.
She stood, dick-hardeningly pretty in a blue polka-dot dress, with her friend, Amy. Rebecca was pale and had already confessed she was nervous about watching our fight.
There was no reason for her to be. Cillian and I were the best for miles around. This was our profession, our talent and skill. The two guys we were facing off against were no doubt quaking in their boots right now.
Del the Destroyer and Keith Kickass were our nemesis for the next space in time. They hailed from an East London club, hence the dumb names they liked to parade with, but their fanfare brought in an extra-big crowd which meant an extra-big profit, so I wasn’t complaining.
Rebecca sent her attention their way, and I followed her line of sight.