Marnie Riches - The Cover Up - A gripping crime thriller for 2018

He thought about the prospect of that dozy show pony, Sheila, trying to defend herself against the likes of Nigel Bancroft: organised, established, semi-legal and experienced as hell. Threw back his head and laughed so hard, he began to wheeze.

‘What a bleeding joke!’

Sheila was just a woman. If the Brummies were after the O’Brien empire, she didn’t stand a hope in hell. Maybe Bancroft would do the job of bringing down his treacherous widow for him.

Sheila was surprised that her breath wasn’t steaming on the air in the office perched high above the warehouse floor of the cannabis farm. Despite the hot, moist, tropical climes artificially created in the vast industrial area below to keep the crops lush, she shivered in that claustrophobic crow’s nest of a room. The stiletto boots she had pulled on before leaving the car were causing her feet to spasm. Or maybe she was just tense as hell at the prospect of what was to come.

‘I don’t think this is a good idea,’ Conky said, perched on the dated 1970s desk that still bore the splintered bullet-holes from the Boddlingtons’ attack back in the spring. He removed his glasses with a flourish and fixed Gloria with The Eyes. ‘You don’t have any experience of dealing with these eejits. Colin Chang just about managed because he had the technical nous. But you’re an ex-cleaner, not a pharmacist, so you haven’t even got that, have you? Having a gun in your shopping trolley won’t give you any of the gravitas needed to run the O’Brien business interests.’

‘Who says?’ Gloria asked, folding her arms tightly across her chest. Bitterness audible in her clipped consonants. ‘I manage over a hundred women. And you could do with one of our girls in here. Look at the state of it! Has this place ever seen a duster?’

Conky sighed, rubbing The Eyes like a despairing parent. He looked to Sheila for support, but Sheila focused on Lev, who was rolling Jay’s pushchair to and fro along the wrinkled, threadbare old office carpet.

Seize control before Conky steam-rollers over you, Sheila O’Brien, she counselled herself. Draw your sodding boundaries. ‘Gloria’s taking over from that prick, Degsy, and that’s my final decision.’ Sheila turned back to her lover and noticed the dejected expression on his craggy face. Right then, Conky put her in mind of a chastised dog. ‘I want him demoted so he’s just running errands. I’m not having him mismanaging staff, leaving us open to attack and losing me money because he can’t organise a piss-up at a brewery. We either pull him into line or he gets booted out on his arse completely.’ She turned to Gloria. ‘That’s your first task, Glo.’

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