“Bradshaw messed up,” Sean says in a harsh breath. “The conservation officers at the council have declined the planning application for Motor Works. It’ll delay us by another three months now.”
I look up at him from behind my desk. “How?”
Sean walks toward my desk and sets down papers. “Bradshaw didn’t do proper due diligence on Newham council planning permission. It works slightly differently to the other London boroughs. They missed a form.”
I scan the documents. It’s a rookie mistake and one Bradshaw Brown should be embarrassed to make. “Call the leads in.”
He nods and leaves.
When he returns, Max, Steve, Bonnie and two others are behind him. All of them look nervous as they pile into my office.
I don’t ask them to take a seat.
Max clears his throat, looking particularly twitchy. “Jack, I—”
“Three months,” I cut him off. “Perhaps I should cut the Bradshaw contract and get professionals on it.”
The room collectively inhales a breath.
I glance at Bonnie. Her shoulders slump like the final energy drains from her body. These past two weeks she’s been acting strangely. Pulling back from me. She’s spent most nights at my place, but her mind is elsewhere. She tries to distract me with lamb stews, bright smiles and blow jobs but I still see it.
She’s hiding something from me.
I need to figure out why because it’s fucking killing me. Somewhere between the bad dancing at the wedding and the nights spent fixing broken things in her flat I’ve fallen in love with her.
“Jack,” Max braves again. “I understand that this is a slight setback. I’m working on expediting a resubmission with the local authority. It was an oversight by the architects but—”
“Stop blaming your team, Max,” I cut him off again. “You’re the lead on this project. I hold you accountable.” I run my tongue over my teeth; I don’t have the patience for this shit and I’ve no patience for the weasel who shit all over my girl’s heart.
His throat bobs. “Yes, Jack.”
“Make the three-month wait time disappear, Max, or I’ll be looking at a different team.”
His face pales. He has little chance of making that happen. I’ll end up sorting it out but I need to see them panic.
“That’s everything,” I say, dismissing them. “Bonnie, can you stay behind, please?”
She looks startled but nods her head.
Steve, the other architect, shoots her a sympathetic look.
Max frowns. “Jack, I can handle—”
“Close the door on your way out, Max.”
Max is mortified. In my defence, the guy has upset my girl. I should tear him apart.
“Of course.” He regains his composure and ushers Steve and Sean out of the room to try to claw back some control.
Bonnie and I don’t speak until the others have left.
“I’m really sorry, Jack,” she says in a soft voice. “I should have read the application properly. I missed that.”
She’s so pained looking; I stride towards her and bundle her up in a hug.
“You know this is just business, right?” I murmur against her forehead. “I won’t take the contract off Bradshaw. I’m just giving Max a kick up the ass. As I said, the buck stops with him. He wants the glory, he can take the guts with it.”
“It’s fine, Jack. I understand.” She smiles up at me, but tears threaten in her eyes.
I sigh heavily as I lift her chin. “Something’s bothering you, Bonnie. Sooner or later, you’ll have to tell me.”
She looks scared, as if I meant it as a threat. Did Max break her trust so badly she can’t confide in me?
I planned to tell her that I’ve bought back her dad’s old house that was repossessed but I fear I’ll freak her out even more. In a few months’ time, he’ll be able to move in.
I’ll gain my girl’s trust if it’s the last thing I do.
***
Belmarsh is a prison south of the Thames and across the water from my regeneration project.
Once dubbed Britain’s Guantanamo Bay because of the number of terrorists it held, it’s one of three maximum security prisons in the UK.
If you make it to Belmarsh, chances are you’re probably not getting out.
That didn’t make me feel any better. Donnie Wicks has spent the past decade here. From what I heard, he’s had a nice life, ruling from inside prison instead of the streets.
It’s just an office change to him.
London’s East Enders were still as fearful of him from the inside as the outside.
It takes me almost an hour to get through security. Everyone is watching, guards, cleaners, prisoners. I can think of better ways to spend a Friday afternoon.
Everyone knows who I am, and everyone knows who I’m visiting. We are two accidental celebrities meeting for a very fucked-up reason.
The press will be outside by the time I leave. It won’t make the News at Ten but it’s enough to get the local rags mildly excited.
It’s clear Wicks gets special treatment. Like a V.I.P., he sits in a far corner away from the other prisoners with a prison guard entourage.
He extends his hand. Wicks expects me to rebuke him, but I take it with an iron grip, squeezing so tight I can feel the old man’s veins squishing.
I tower over the bald, slightly overweight man, meeting his gaze for the first time in a decade.
I could do serious damage to this guy. I’m trained well enough to crush him before the guards have time to react.
He knows this but he meets my gaze head-on with a certain steel in his eyes that proves the mind makes the man more than the muscle.
Donnie Wicks never loses his temper or cool. He has people to do that for him.
“Alright, lad.” He smiles, a relaxed smile that could trick you into believing the guy hadn’t been responsible for the death of at least twenty people. “Last time I saw you was the night you beat young Slater to a pulp. Great bloody fight that was.”
It’s a fucked-up opening but I expected no less. I remember that night. It was my last fight before Dad died.
I regard him coolly. I’m calm. Surprisingly calm for someone who has harboured a vendetta for ten years. But going on the attack with your enemy before they’ve shown their cards isn’t wise. I didn’t get to where I am today by doing that and neither did Wicks.
“Take a seat,” he says with the relaxed ease of someone inviting me in for an afternoon tea at his house.
I clear my throat and sit in the plastic chair. Plastic because at a max security prison, a steel or even wooden chair is the perfect weapon.
“Well? What is it you wanted to say to me?”
Three prison guards watch me like hawks. No doubt our conversation will be recorded covertly.
I notice the crucifix around his neck. It’s always the lifers that find God.
Donnie nods his head to one of the female prison guards. “Two teas, love.” He looks at me. “You like tea?”
I clench and unclench my jaw, which is starting to ache. “I’m not thirsty.”
“Suit yourself.” He shrugs and leans back in his chair like we have all fucking day to chit-chat. “You’ve come a long way since that fight. Your old nan would be proud, God rest her soul.”
“She’s not dead.”
He looks surprised. “Good on her.”
I lean over and fight the urge to put my hand around his neck. “Wanna get straight to the point, Wicks? I didn’t come here to have a nice chinwag.”
It’s only when he smiles that I notice how sick he is. Under the bravado is a weak sick man. Lung cancer, I was told.
The smile turns into a coughing fit to the point of choking. As his spittle lands on his chin, he takes out a handkerchief and gently wipes it away with a reserved calmness.
“Your nan’s a lucky sod,” he says, putting away the handkerchief. “She must have great health at her age.”
I sigh a frustrated breath. “Get to the point, Wicks.”
“Alright, alright. I’ve got no place to be.” He chuckles. “You’ve spent a lot of energy trying to nail me for your dad’s death. I get it, lad. I would have done a lot worse if the tables were turned.”
“And?” I snarl.
“I didn’t kill your old man.”
I actually laugh. A hateful laugh. “You drag me down here to say this shit?”
He puts his hands up. “It’s true. It’s a fucking paradox, right? The whole thing pointed to a revenge killing.”
He gives me a lazy smile, taking out the handkerchief again to wipe sweat from his bald head. “Bloody meds give you the sweats. Truth is, I didn’t give a shit that your old man was servicing my missus. Kept her gob shut from complaining about my girls. You think I was going to waste my libido on my washed-up missus? I had much better women bouncing on my cock.”
“Bullshit. Are you trying to rile me into beating you to a pulp?” My hands white-knuckle the side of the table. “Because I don’t mind joining you in here.”
He waves his hands. “No bullshit,” he says easily.
I study him carefully.
Fuck.
He’s telling the truth.
Because cowards lie and Donnie Wicks is anything but a coward. All these years, he said nothing. He didn’t outright claim or deny the killing. I thought his silence was his way of torturing Dad’s next of kin.
I fight to control the sudden rush of adrenaline surging through me. “If what you say is true, who did it?” I ask in a level tone.
“You know I’m no grass, which is why you haven’t gotten your answers before now. But since Gleeson choked it and I’m choking it I figured I’d put you out of your misery.”
“Gleeson?” I blink. “Who the hell is Gleeson?”
“Nobody, son. Absolutely fucking nobody.” He lets out a raspy laugh. “Just an idiot who liked to get a few things off the back of a lorry now and then.”
“You’re saying this random guy, Gleeson, killed Dad?” I hiss.
“Now you’re catching on. There was no big drama behind your dad’s death. A sloppy robbery gone wrong, that’s what it was. A guy in a balaclava making a quick buck.”
I slam my fist on the table. Donnie doesn’t flinch, but the guards inch closer.
He waves them away dismissively.
“How do you know this?”
“Come on, lad, don’t ask silly questions. I know everything.” The corner of his eyes crinkle. “You know why I want a closed casket, son?
“What?”
“Another paradox. Donnie Wicks dies at the hands of himself instead of all the men looking to put a bullet in his head. Have you seen a body riddled with lung cancer when it finally takes them? It ain’t pretty. Now, your dad, he had an open casket, didn’t he? Very unfortunate what happened.”
It’s his misplaced sympathy that finally does it for me.
I lift him up by the throat, feeling his weak pulse accelerate. And squeeze. He gargles as five heavy-footed guards pounce, knocking me to the floor. It takes all five to restrain me. They can beat me unconscious for all I care.
“It’s alright, Bobby, let the young lad up,” Donnie’s strangled voice calls from above us followed by a coughing fit.
“Time’s up, Knight,” the head guard says gruffly.
I pick myself off the floor to see all five guards standing between a red-faced Donnie and me.
Donnie winks. “Good chat, lad.”
He turns to walk off.
“Oh, Jack?” He calls after me casually. “There were others. They might not have put the blade in, but they were there. Next time you visit, bring me a beer.”
