Nick Oldham - Substantial Threat

The Adam’s apple in JJ’s scrawny throat rose and fell. He pushed himself slowly to his feet, stubbing out the butt of the hand-rolled cigarette in the overfilled ashtray. With a terrible sense of foreboding he approached the window, cautiously eyeing the three men, seeing if there was any possible way out past Marty and Crazy. There wasn’t. They had the door blocked. No chance of doing a runner. Even Carrie had stopped her sobbing and moaning and was watching transfixed from behind her bloody fingers.

‘Go on, don’t dilly-dally,’ Ray urged him. ‘Giving me a display of your climbing prowess is the only way you’re going to leave this room.’

JJ hesitated, then swung his right leg over the window and sat astride it.

‘Go,’ said Ray. ‘I want to see you climb down.’

JJ eased his left leg over and lowered his toes down to the ledge.

Suddenly Ray crossed the room and faced JJ. ‘Actually no one skims from me. Two hundred quid or two grand, it doesn’t matter. Principle’s the same. You stole from me, committed theft.’

On the last word, Ray’s right hand shot out palm first, but landed softly on JJ’s chest. JJ clung on to the window frame. His eyes pleaded with Ray’s, but got nothing back in return, just ice.

‘Fuck. . Ray. . Don’t!’

A look of utter contempt twisted on to Ray’s face. Then he pushed and said, ‘Fly, you bastard.’

JJ could not hold on. His fingers lost their grip and he was out in mid-air in freefall. He knew there was nothing he could do, just wait for the impact and maybe hope to survive it somehow. There was a whooshing sensation past his ears as he hurtled down. It lasted only momentarily and then he hit the ground. But there was nothing. No pain. No feeling. No blackness.

Ray had leaned out of the window to watch the fall. To him, JJ seemed to be in the air for a long, long time, it was as if everything had slowed down. JJ’s arms flailed like a broken windmill, his mouth opened in a silent scream. Time then clicked back to normal and he smashed into the ground. Ray plainly heard the dull whack as the top of JJ’s head struck. His body twitched a jig, his eyes came open, then he did not move anymore, his eyes staying open, staring up at Ray accusingly.

Ray pushed himself away from the window, a grim, wild look in his own eyes.

‘First one of the day,’ he announced. ‘Let’s get a move on.’

He made towards the door. Carrie, who had watched him murder her boyfriend, forgot her own fear and pain and pounced at Ray’s feet, screaming, ‘You bastard!’

Ray smartly side-stepped and rammed the sole of his trainer against the side of her face, kicking her away. She sprawled across the room, but wasn’t finished. Jumping to her feet, she went for him again.

Marty put himself between her and Ray. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and dug his fist into her stomach. He dragged her sideways and threw her to the floor.

This time she did not move, just lay there sobbing and choking.

‘No witnesses, Marty,’ Ray said. ‘Take care of her and see us down in the car when you’ve done.’

The words were bliss to Marty’s ears. ‘It’ll be a fuckin’ pleasure.’

It was a mess underneath the settee. There were discarded cigarette packets, matchboxes, a couple of pizza boxes (one with a half-eaten Margarita in it), numerous cigarette and roach ends, some scrunched-up free newspapers and a pair of knickers. All in all, a tinderbox.

The cigarette end which had fallen from JJ’s fingers did the trick.

It burned slowly and almost died, but re-ignited when a waft of fresh air rolled through the flat when Marty left the premises after he had finished with Carrie. A tiny ember blew on to a rolled-up fish and chip paper and started to burn. The little flames crackled and licked the underside of the cheap settee, immediately melting the plastic-like fibre and spreading to the foam-filled insides.

In less than sixty seconds the fire had engulfed the piece of furniture and was reaching towards the curtains.

The old man who found JJ’s twisted body on the playground did not think to call the police. A paramedic unit was first on the scene. Once they were certain JJ’s life was extinct — not a difficult thing to work out — they called the cops and covered the body from the prying eyes of the crowd which had started to gather.

While waiting for the arrival of the boys/girls in blue, they saw the flames begin to pour out of the open window of the flat four floors above.

So they called the fire brigade.

It was going to be a full turn-out for the emergency services.

‘Now I remember you, too,’ Jacqueline Burrows said. ‘Bit of a messy suicide, wasn’t it? You were one of the detectives who came to the house to have a look at the body.’

Henry nodded and raised his eyebrows. ‘Mind if I ask you the question you probably always get asked?’

‘The “why” question?’ she said. ‘Why would a girl like you want to become an undertaker? Dead bodies and all that messy stuff? The smell of death, embalming fluid, etcetera, etcetera?’

‘Yeah, the “why” question,’ Henry confirmed.

‘Impulse,’ she admitted. ‘No great feel for a vocation or anything like that. I was fifteen at the time, a rebel at school, really pissed off, saw an ad in the local rag and thought I’d have a go at it. An undertaker took me on and I really enjoyed it.’ She shrugged. ‘Took to it like a duck to water, just loved it. Embalming, making people who’d been smashed to bits look good again so their relatives could have some decent memory of them. Spent a few years learning the trade and my dad set me up in business when I was nineteen. Got a bit bored with it a couple of years ago, so I sold up, bought an empty hotel on South Shore and converted it into flats. . done that ever since. Very lucrative. Got ten properties now.’

‘Who is your father?’ Henry wanted to know.

‘Bill Burrows — transport.’

‘Oh,’ said Henry, slightly taken aback. He knew of Burrows Transport and their international fleet of haulage vehicles. It was a very successful business, rivalling the best transport companies in Europe, and Bill Burrows was one of the richest men in the north of England.

‘I thought you’d know him,’ she said, seeing Henry’s reaction. Then she changed tack and said, ‘So why did you become a cop?’

‘I think I’m here to ask the questions.’

‘Fair’s fair,’ she insisted.

‘Okay,’ he relented. ‘Impulse. Boredom. A desire to shock my mother. And it sounded like a fun job.’

‘And has it been?’

‘It has its moments. . now, back to business. Somebody was murdered in one of your bedsits about a year ago.’

‘Like I said before — I don’t know anything about it.’

Henry paused before speaking again. He liked silence during interview situations, was never uncomfortable with it; it was always the interviewee who got twitchy — usually — but Jack Burrows did not seem to mind. She was a very cool customer, he thought. He hoped this was just a veneer and that underneath she was paddling like mad.

‘I find that very difficult to believe.’

‘It’s true,’ she replied without any trace of annoyance.

‘Convince me,’ he urged her.

‘When I started out in the rental game and had one or two properties, I did all the day to day stuff and I knew everybody who was in the flats. The more properties I took on, the less time I had to do that,’ she said, tweaking her fingers. ‘By the time I’d got five places, there was just no way I could personally know all the tenants, so I hired a manager and opened an office in town. He did all the routine tasks for me, including arranging lets to clients. I simply do not know who is in my flats now. I’m too busy buying another block and I’m also negotiating to buy a sea-front hotel. It’s go, go, go.’ She smiled. ‘And that’s why I don’t know anything about the girl who was murdered. Obviously it was a tragedy, but. .’ She did not finish what she was going to say but then went on, ‘So it’s the manager who knew her and let her have the flat, not me.’