Barry Maitiland - Spider Trap

‘We all need allies, Kathy, friends. I thought we made pretty good allies at one time, before Brock took you under his wing. I’m not talking about betraying loyalties, just about having sources, for mutual advantage. It can get pretty cold out there, in the dark water. Tom found that out, didn’t he?’

‘Yes, maybe you’re right.’

‘Of course I am.You’re going places, Kathy, no doubt about that.We should be friends.’

She frowned, as if needing time to think about this.

‘Anyway,’ Martin gave a dismissive flap of his hand. ‘What about dessert?’

He had made his pitch, she felt, or at least half of it. The other half came later, after they got the taxi back to his office, where he picked up his car to drive her home. It was a cold night, and then the rain began as they reached Kentish Town. The beating of the wipers and the dull glow of streetlights on drab buildings contrasted with the snugness of their capsule, dry, warm and smelling of new leather.

‘You’ll think about what I said, won’t you?’ he asked as his headlights swept across the forecourt of her block.

‘Of course.’

He pulled in to a visitor’s space, and as she detached her seat-belt he leaned over and cupped her cheek and kissed her mouth. She had to suppress a reaction of panic as she felt his tongue slide against her lips. Clammy, oppressive memories filled her head, of the claustrophobic intensity of treacherous love with him.

He pulled away at last. He was excited, breathing heavily. ‘What about a nightcap then,’ he said, not a question, reaching for the door handle.

‘Not tonight, Martin.’

He turned back to her, lips pressed tight to contain his irritation.‘Don’t be a tease, Kathy.’

‘I think you’re being the tease.You drop hints and mysterious pearls of wisdom all evening, but I’m really none the wiser. I still don’t know what you did to us.’

He took a deep breath, exasperated.‘Got to sing for my supper, do I? Carly Simon, Kathy, remember? This wasn’t about Brock.’

‘Who then? Not Tom, surely. Michael Grant?’

He stared ahead through the running film of water on the windscreen for a moment, and when he looked at her again he was calm, in control.‘Not Brock, not Tom, not Grant. This was about Spider, Kathy. All about Spider. About keeping him safe, at all costs. Brock, Tom, Grant were collateral damage-most welcome to Spider, of course, vindictive old bastard that he is.’

She still didn’t get it.Her incomprehension was written all over her face, and he frowned at her slowness. ‘He’s making amends, Kathy, coming in from the cold, spilling the beans, in return for amnesty, for him and his family. The last of the supergrasses.Your bodies under the snow threatened everything. He hadn’t mentioned them. They weren’t part of the package. The last thing they needed was Brock blundering around pinning a twenty-fouryear-old murder rap on the old thug.’

Kathy felt herself press back against the soft leather as if by the force of his revelation. ‘They? You said the last thing they needed?’

He raised his eyebrows.‘Come on,now you are being obtuse.’

‘But . . . But the Roaches did murder those three men?’

‘’Course they did, but who now gives a monkey’s fart? They were Jamaican illegals, for God’s sake, drug dealers, scum. Okay? Mystery solved?’

And Dana and Dee-Ann, she wanted to say, were they scum too? But he had leaned forward and taken her in his arms again, nuzzling her cheek and neck as if trying to trace her new perfume to its source. His hand moved in under the lap of her coat, and she wondered how she could extricate herself without him thinking her an even bigger bitch than she felt.

Then another car turned into the car park, and Martin pulled away as its headlights caught them. For a moment the interior of his car was illuminated by the blinding beam, their faces brightly lit. Then the other car turned quickly and sped away. Kathy recognised the Subaru.

‘That was Tom Reeves,’ she said, and Martin swore.

‘Does he know me?’

Kathy wasn’t sure, but she said,‘Yes.You’d better go.’

He didn’t argue, and as she ran through the rain to the front doors she heard his engine rev and drive quickly away.

When she reached her flat she dropped her coat and poured herself a big slug of Scotch and sat down to think. Then she got on the phone. She tried Tom first, without success, then rang Brock. He didn’t answer his home phone, but she got him on his mobile.

There was no one in when Kathy arrived at his house the next morning, although she was ten minutes later than the time they’d arranged for her to call. She listened to the bell echoing again inside, then turned at the rumble of tyres in the cobbled yard at the end of the lane. A car door slammed and Brock appeared, dressed in a windcheater and jeans.

He opened the front door, picking newspapers and mail off the mat, and followed her up the book-lined stairs to the living room on the first floor, where he took her coat and went into the kitchen to put on the kettle. There were no signs of breakfast, and Kathy wondered where he’d stayed overnight, but she didn’t ask. He brought coffee and chocolate biscuits, fetched a pad of paper and they got to work.

She went over everything again,everything Martin had told her and then other things that had occurred to her since. She recalled Tom’s comments about how he’d been encouraged by his boss to get involved with Brock’s team, and they began to draw up a time-line of events.During the night she’d almost persuaded herself,with a sick sense of betrayal and self-recrimination,that Tom had known from the very beginning what he was doing, that he had groomed her from the moment he had reappeared in her life, on instructions from his boss. But Brock disagreed. It was Tom, he pointed out, who had given them the crucial lead to the Brown Bread shootings, and it was that, Brock believed, which must have triggered alarms further up the line. She also told Brock what Tom had said about a friend in Special Branch pointing him in the direction of a ‘weak link’ in the Roach family whom he might target.

‘He was steered every inch of the way,’ Brock said.‘They knew their man, how desperate he was to make amends, even if it meant stepping outside the system and throwing his lot in with Michael Grant.’

‘That was the phrase Martin Connell used about Spider Roach-making amends.’

‘He must have plenty to trade if they were willing to give him this much protection, and sacrifice one of their own.’

‘You think the Branch was behind this?’

‘And the others. I wouldn’t be surprised if MI5 already had that stuff on Grant’s background in his security file. This would have been a JIC operation, Kathy, and only the people at the very top would know the full story.’

‘So we should leave it alone.’

‘Clearly . . . But,’ he scratched his beard, ‘I would still like to have a talk to Michael Grant.’

He gestured at the headlines on the newspapers: ‘Yardie MP Vanishes’ and ‘Accused MP fails to face inquiry’.

‘Aren’t you angry?’ Kathy asked him. ‘You’re one of their victims too. I’d be furious.’

‘Yes, I suppose I am. But I’m also intrigued. I wonder if they really know what Spider’s like to do business with. They must be worried that there may be other things he hasn’t told them.’

Kathy looked at him curiously, sensing some hidden meaning. ‘Did you find anything in the old files?’

‘Probably not. A sniff of a possible motive for the three killings perhaps.’ And he told her of his theory about Adonia and her daughter.