Читать книгу The Alibi: A gripping crime thriller full of secrets, lies and revenge - Jaime Raven, Jaime Raven - Страница 15

Danny Shapiro

Danny walked out of his mews house safe in the knowledge that the police weren’t about to pounce on him. The very existence of the property was a closely guarded secret. It was his father who had advised him not to live on their south London manor.

‘Don’t make the same mistakes I did, son,’ Callum told him. ‘The Old Bill were able to follow my every move because I was careless and complacent. They bugged my home and my car, and wherever I went they had me on camera. I also made myself a target for my enemies.’

Danny took the advice on board but didn’t act on it until that Chechen scumbag tried to shoot him over a territorial dispute. It was a wake-up call and it prompted Danny to reassess his lifestyle.

As a result he stopped using his own car, started using pay-as-you-go phones and wore a baseball cap or a hoody when he took to the streets. He also bought as much as he could with cash rather than with traceable credit cards.

The most significant decision he took was to move out of his luxury flat overlooking the Thames in Bermondsey. He never felt safe there anyway after the attempt on his life, and he was convinced the filth had it under surveillance.

There was no shortage of places for him to go since the firm had for years been investing in property across London. He settled on the mews house which had been purchased through an offshore company five years earlier with the proceeds from a major drugs deal. It had remained empty ever since, gathering dust and increasing in value.

There was nothing to link it to him or his father and because it was smack in the middle of the West End he considered it the ideal location.

In explaining the decision to his father, he’d said, ‘It’s in one of the busiest spots in the capital, Dad. The area’s covered with CCTV cameras and teeming with tourists, and the streets are permanently gridlocked. I won’t just be inconspicuous – I’ll be fucking invisible.’

So far it had worked a treat. Most evenings he left the manor in a taxi or on a tube and disappeared into the bustle of the West End, making it impossible for anyone to follow him.

The house had four bedrooms, a garage that housed his rarely used BMW, and overlooked a small communal garden at the rear. It was located just off New Bond Street, within walking distance of Sotheby’s and a range of designer shops from Burberry to Jimmy Choo.

The arrangement had its disadvantages, of course. He never took women back there and he sometimes wondered if it was worth all the hassle. Still, he couldn’t deny that once he closed the door behind him he always felt safe and secure, knowing that no one knew where he was.

The flat in Bermondsey still had its uses. He stayed there occasionally and it was great for parties and meetings. It was also where he took his women, usually prossies and one-night stands. But he knew he would have to have a rethink when and if he eventually entered into another long-term relationship.

As usual the area was heaving. Traffic was snarled up in New Bond Street so he walked up to Grosvenor Street to hail a black cab.

His progress would have been monitored by a whole bunch of security cameras but it didn’t bother him because he’d be just another anonymous figure in the crowd. These days he preferred not to attract attention, which was why he dressed down and chose not to go everywhere with minders.

The years spent with Megan had turned him into the best-known villain in London. That hadn’t been so bad when his father was running the show and he’d been able to concentrate on enjoying himself.

Now things were different. The onus of responsibility had made him appreciate just how vulnerable he was.

It had also made him realise that he couldn’t trust anyone but himself.

Tamara lived in one of the residential streets bordering Vauxhall Park. As the taxi pulled up outside her house, Danny did a quick recce of the immediate area.

He couldn’t see any street cameras and this came as a relief. It would make it harder for the cops to prove that he hadn’t spent the previous evening here.

He still had to convince Tamara to provide him with an alibi, but he was hopeful because she hadn’t turned him down on the phone. It would have been easy for her to do so and he would have understood.

She’d appeared sympathetic to his plight, and had said that she did not want to see him go to prison for something he hadn’t done. But he reckoned it was probably the £50,000 bribe he offered her that had prompted her to tell him to come right over so that they could talk it through.

Hers was a modest terraced house with creeping ivy clinging to the brickwork. Danny’s stomach was churning as he rang the bell. He had no back-up plan if she decided not to help him and he had no idea what he would do.

The filth were probably thinking he’d done a runner. He’d considered calling Ethan Cain, the firm’s main man inside the Met, to find out what was going on, but had decided it should wait until after he’d sorted an alibi.

His empty stomach lurched when Tamara answered the door and ushered him quickly inside. The first thing she did when the door was closed was to give him a hug and the strong smell of her perfume made his eyes smart.

‘Come into the kitchen,’ she said. ‘The kettle has just boiled.’

She was softly spoken and there was the subtle hint of an Irish accent in her voice.

The house interior was surprisingly old-fashioned, with chintzy curtains and wallpaper, and brightly coloured rugs on the floor.

In the kitchen Tamara told him to sit at a table while she poured the teas. A portable TV stood on the worktop and it was tuned into the news. An anchor was talking about the prime minister’s latest pronouncement on welfare reform.

‘Does your father know what’s happening?’ she asked over her shoulder.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I haven’t heard from him.’

She turned and he watched her as she placed the mugs on the table. She was in her mid-forties but looked younger. Her eyes were dark, her lips full, and she had perfectly symmetrical features. There was a spray of faded freckles across the bridge of her nose, and her skin was clear and smooth with just a touch of foundation around the eyes.

She was wearing a grey sweatshirt and jeans, and her red hair hung loose about her shoulders. She sat down at the table and lit a cigarette, expelling the smoke in a long, thin stream.

‘You look like you’ve got the world on your shoulders, Danny,’ she said.

‘Right now that’s what it feels like. This has come out of the blue and I need to react to it.’

She leaned across the table and placed a hand over one of his.

‘Before we talk about this I need you to do something for me, hon. I need you to look me in the eyes and tell me you didn’t kill Megan. I’ll know if you’re lying.’

Danny straightened his back and thrust out his chin.

‘I swear on my life that I didn’t do it, Tamara. I’ve done some bad things in my time, but murdering a woman isn’t one of them. It’s not my style.’

‘But you did go to Megan’s house last night.’

‘I did, and we argued like I told you on the phone. But she was alive when I left there.’

That at least was what he wanted to believe. The truth was there were still gaps in his memory. As hard as he tried he just couldn’t remember how the argument with Megan had ended and what she’d been doing when he’d stormed out.

‘The police are not going to believe me,’ he said. ‘If no one else is in the frame and I don’t have an alibi then I’m toast.’

‘So what makes you so sure that the police will believe me?’

‘Why wouldn’t they? It’ll be hard, if not impossible, for them to prove that I wasn’t here.’

‘But I wasn’t here myself, Danny. I told you that on the phone. I got home after midnight.’

‘Did anyone see you?’

‘I doubt it. The taxi dropped me right outside. I didn’t notice anyone around. And the neighbours aren’t particularly nosey.’

‘So where had you been?’

Her face filled with colour and she flicked her head towards a calendar hanging from a hook on the wall behind her. It was too far away for Danny to see the words scrawled in the boxes.

‘I spent the evening with a new client,’ she said. ‘I went to his place in Maida Vale at nine and left after midnight.’

‘But that’s not a problem,’ Danny said. ‘He never has to know what you’ve told the police. In fact no one has to know. As soon as you tell them that I was with you that’ll be the end of the matter. And if anyone comes here asking you just stick to the story.’

She turned back to him, sucked in a breath, said, ‘I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t believe you, Danny. Even for fifty thousand pounds. But I do believe you. So it follows that I can’t stand by and let them fit you up. Your dad would never forgive me.’

‘Does that mean …?’

She nodded. ‘It means I’ll tell the Old Bill that you were with me all evening and that you’re often here. I’ll say that between ten and midnight we were watching telly and drinking wine.’

Danny felt the knot in his chest loosen. ‘I’ll owe you big time, babe. And so will Dad. I’ll make arrangements for the money to be sent wherever you want.’

‘You and your father have done a lot for me, Danny. This is my way of paying you back.’

They spent the next half an hour agreeing the details of their story. They’d say he arrived early in the evening but that he couldn’t recall the exact time because he’d been drinking. Then he stayed overnight and heard about Megan’s murder when he woke up this morning.

‘We can get around the details by saying we were on the booze the entire time,’ he said.

She gave a hesitant smile. ‘So you’re confident we can get away with it?’

‘I’m positive. Trust me. It’ll be fine.’

The TV news seized their attention suddenly. They were back to reporting on Megan’s murder. Two detectives, one of them Ethan Cain, were standing before a crowd of reporters answering questions.

Danny felt his jaw set with tension when a woman asked them whether Megan’s ex-husband had been questioned and if it was true he’d made threats against her. He recognised her straight away as Bethany Chambers, the crime reporter on The Post. She was well known on the manor, and not just because of her job. She was the stepdaughter of Tony Hunter, the blagger who was shot some years ago in Tulse Hill. How bloody ironic, he thought, that her job now was to report on such things.

He recalled meeting the cheeky cow a couple of times when she approached him for an interview. It occurred to him then, as it did now, that she was a ballsy bitch.

‘Can you confirm that Mr Shapiro spoke to Miss Fuller by phone yesterday and that they had an argument? According to Mr Fuller, his daughter was threatened by Mr Shapiro.’

Danny’s blood surged with a hot rush of anger. The fucking slag was trying to implicate him.

The anger mounted when she went on to say that Megan’s father had told her about the phone call in an interview.

‘Those fucking idiot coppers should have kept her away from him,’ he blurted.

‘Don’t let it get to you, hon,’ Tamara said. ‘It would have come out sooner or later. And besides, it’s common knowledge that you two were always arguing.’

Danny shook his head and the rage continued the burn inside him.

After a few seconds he switched on one of his three pay-as-you-go phones and tapped in a number he knew by heart. When DI Ethan Cain answered, he said, ‘It’s Danny Shapiro here, my friend. I just heard your lot are looking for me.’