CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Nobody moved.
Terry Pike looked at the pistol aimed at his chest.
Then at Denny.
"Young man."
Denny shrugged.
"I'm thirty-six."
"To me, that's young."
"To Redmile, that's surviving."
The three men behind Denny shifted.
Two kept their weapons low.
The third pointed his at Terry's men.
Leah's eyes moved across the room.
Balance changed.
Not safety.
Different danger.
Terry did not appear worried.
That worried her most.
"Mason Rigg chose badly," Terry said.
Denny nodded.
"Repeatedly."
"I offered you his routes."
"You offered me a route where every copper, biker and dock worker above thirty ends up dead when you don't need them anymore."
Terry smiled.
"Cynical."
"Educated."
Denny looked at Drew.
"Goole was enough for me."
Drew said, "You might have mentioned this before walking in with three guns."
"Terry checks phones."
"Could have sent a birthday card."
"Didn't know the date."
"Fair."
Terry's gaze moved between them.
"How touching. Rival clubs discovering cooperation."
Daniel said, "Don't worry. We'll hate each other again tomorrow."
Ben lifted his tied hands.
"Could we schedule the reconciliation after somebody cuts these?"
Leah started toward him.
Terry raised one finger.
A man on the upper storage platform appeared with a rifle.
Leah stopped.
Terry had not been worried because the visible men were not all the men.
Of course.
"Nobody moves," Terry said.
Denny's pistol remained raised.
"You going to shoot all of us?"
"No."
Terry looked toward the roof.
"I only need one."
A red dot settled on Drew's chest.
Leah's blood turned cold.
Terry saw her see it.
"There."
Drew looked down at the dot.
"Subtle."
"Effective."
Terry turned to Denny.
"Lower the gun."
Denny did not.
The red dot stayed on Drew.
Terry sighed.
"Mr Cross. Redmile has existed for eleven years. North End for nearly thirty. Do you know the difference between the men who survive and the men who become stories?"
Denny said, "Better accountants?"
"Patience."
Denny lowered the pistol.
Slowly.
Terry smiled.
"Good."
Leah looked at the platform.
One shooter.
Maybe more.
She could not see an angle from the landward window.
Calder's team would not either.
The boarded slats blocked line of sight.
Terry held out his hand toward Drew.
"Your weapon."
Drew removed the pistol.
Leah stared at him.
He put it on the workbench.
Terry pointed at her.
"Yours."
Leah did the same.
Denny and his men followed.
Daniel had been searched already.
Michael had nothing.
Terry's people collected the weapons.
Ben sighed.
"This has become less promising."
Daniel looked at him.
"You complain a lot for a hostage."
"Professional development."
Terry walked to the old workbench and laid Richard's copied page beside Mick's ledger.
The ledger was thicker than Drew expected.
Black cover.
Elastic band around it.
Thirty years of routes and payments in something small enough to fit beneath a motorcycle seat.
Terry touched the founder ring on his hand.
"Mick always liked paper. Said computers gave policemen too much confidence."
Owen's father.
Gareth's father.
A man everyone had made into whatever version they needed.
Drew said, "Mick turned on you."
Terry looked at him.
"Eventually."
"Why?"
"Guilt."
"Over Dad?"
"Partly. Richard was the first time Mick understood that business did not remain business simply because he called it that."
Michael said, "You killed his friend."
Terry looked almost bored.
"Robert killed him."
"On your instruction."
"Words matter."
Leah said, "Only to cowards."
Terry looked at her.
For a second something old and ugly appeared behind the grandfather face.
"Your father taught you confidence."
Leah smiled.
"Mostly absence."
Michael flinched.
Good.
Terry opened the ledger.
"Mick started copying things after Richard. Payments Hale did not know about. Names I had deliberately kept separate. He wanted insurance."
Drew said, "And you let him live?"
"He was family."
Drew laughed once.
Terry's eyes hardened.
"Do not mistake family for kindness. Family means you tolerate a man's betrayal longer than you tolerate a stranger's."
Drew looked at Daniel.
Daniel looked back.
There were several jokes available.
None worth it.
Terry continued.
"Mick planned to hand the ledger to Michael in 2010. I found out. I left for Spain before Hale could decide he wanted me dead as well."
Michael frowned.
"Hale told us you were dead."
"Hale told everyone many useful things."
"Why stay away?"
"Because money arrives whether people see you or not."
Terry smiled faintly.
"Hale became the visible structure. Venn protected him. Renn eventually tried to replace both. I kept the port relationships. Rotterdam changed men three times. Hull changed officers twice. Nobody changed the water."
Leah felt the shape of it.
Not a king above every king.
A parasite who had simply refused to die.
Terry tapped Richard's copied page.
"Henry Vane's manifests are the last thing I do not control."
Daniel said, "They're gone."
Terry looked at him.
"No."
"I checked the Hedon lock-up. Empty."
"Because your father moved them."
Daniel's expression changed.
Terry smiled.
"He told Mick. Mick told me after too much whisky and too much guilt."
"Where?"
"That is what I need the original page to confirm."
Leah frowned.
"Pressure marks."
"Very good."
Terry looked at her.
"Richard wrote over the page while it sat beneath another sheet. The complete address is impressed into the paper. Your modern laboratories could recover it in minutes. I can recover enough with old methods if I have the original."
Drew almost smiled.
Calder had it.
Terry saw the expression.
"You find that amusing?"
"A little."
"Why?"
"Because you built your whole night around a piece of paper you don't have."
Terry looked at him for a long time.
Then nodded toward Ben.
One of his men drew a pistol and pressed it against the back of Ben's head.
The humour disappeared.
"I have leverage instead."
Drew said, "You kill him, you still don't get the page."
"No. But I learn whether you can watch."
Daniel stepped forward.
The rifle dot moved from Drew to his chest.
"Stop," Terry said.
Daniel stopped.
Terry looked at him.
"You were always the easier brother."
Daniel laughed.
"First time I've heard that."
"You mistake difficult behaviour for difficult control. You only need one thing threatened and you become predictable."
Terry glanced at Drew.
"Him."
Daniel's face emptied.
Drew stared.
Terry continued.
"Nine years ago Hale learned that too. He never intended to kill you at the quarry."
Drew looked at Daniel.
Daniel frowned.
Michael stopped breathing for a beat.
"What?" Daniel said.
Terry smiled.
"He intended to turn you."
"Bullshit."
"He had photographs of Drew moving a gun for Gareth. Enough to put him in prison if framed correctly. Hale offered you a choice. Work for him or your little brother goes down with you."
Drew's stomach tightened.
Daniel looked at Michael.
Michael whispered, "I didn't know."
Terry laughed.
"Of course you didn't. Robert kept his best leverage to himself."
Daniel's voice went quiet.
"He tried to execute me."
"After you refused."
Drew looked at his brother.
Nine years of silence.
Daniel had survived a supposed execution and disappeared into the machinery behind it.
Another secret.
Except Daniel looked genuinely shocked.
Terry continued.
"Gareth gave Hale your location because he thought Hale would frighten you out of North End. Hale arrived with a different offer. You told him to fuck himself. Then he shot you."
Drew remembered Gareth's confession.
He did not know Daniel would be executed.
Terry's story fit.
Which made it worse.
Daniel looked at Drew.
"I never knew you were part of it."
"Apparently neither did I."
Terry smiled.
"Family. So much power from so little information."
Leah stepped between his line of sight and the brothers.
"You brought everyone here to talk about the past because you don't have the page."
Terry looked at her.
"I brought everyone here because I need a new arrangement."
"With Drew."
"Yes."
"He said no."
"People say no before they understand the price."
Terry nodded toward Michael and Daniel.
"Those two come with me. Drew takes North End. Denny takes Redmile. The Humber route becomes quiet again."
Denny said, "Still no."
Terry ignored him.
"Leah resigns."
She blinked.
"Sorry?"
"You resign from the police. You and Drew leave Yorkshire for six months. Spain, perhaps. When you return, the old investigations have collapsed under their own corruption."
Leah laughed.
"You planned my holiday?"
"I planned the condition that keeps you alive."
"Very generous."
"Your father can explain how difficult survival becomes when powerful men want paperwork to say you are dead."
Michael's face tightened.
Terry turned to him.
"You, however, owe me."
Michael stared.
"For what?"
"Richard."
Silence.
Terry smiled.
"You signed the report."
Drew moved before Leah could stop him.
The red dot snapped back to his chest.
Daniel shouted, "Drew!"
Drew stopped two feet from Terry.
"Say his name again."
Terry did.
"Richard."
Drew hit him.
The rifle fired.
The bullet punched through the workbench where Drew had been standing half a second earlier.
Because Denny Cross had tackled him sideways.
Everything broke.
Leah hit the floor and reached for the pistol she no longer had.
Daniel grabbed the metal stool and threw it at the nearest armed man.
Michael pulled Ben's chair over as a second shot smashed the window behind them.
Denny's three Redmile men went for Terry's guards.
Drew rolled behind an engine block.
Terry disappeared through the river door.
Leah saw the rifleman above.
No gun.
No angle.
Then the entire upper window exploded inward.
A shotgun blast came from outside.
Pete Lawson's voice carried through the broken glass.
"Told you his engine sounded shit!"
Drew stared upward.
Sam's old boat had come alongside the workshop wall on the seaward side.
Pete stood in the bow holding a shotgun and looking far too pleased with himself for a man discharged from hospital that afternoon.
Leah closed her eyes for half a second.
"No heroic idiots," she muttered.
North End had apparently interpreted that as a challenge.