The Cover Up: A gripping crime thriller for 2018

Not registering the words but understanding their sentiment, Paddy stuck his middle finger up at the man. ‘Shove it up your arse!’

The passenger opened the van door and got out. He was tall too, seeming larger in a hi-vis donkey jacket with baggy plaster-spattered cargo trousers and elephantine steel-toecap workmen’s boots.

‘Come on, you big bastard,’ Paddy slurred, holding his fists aloft. Squaring up to the far younger man. Couldn’t have been more than thirty. But even in his early sixties, Paddy was certain he was more than a match for this prick. He swung a punch. Missed.

The enraged plasterer, now accompanied by the van’s driver – a giant of a man who looked like a brickie, judging by his physique – raised his fist.

‘Leave him be! He’s an invalid! Leave it, lads. No harm done, right?’

A woman’s voice to Paddy’s left. He felt someone link him and drag him across the road. With sluggish eyes, he registered that it was Brenda. He grinned.

‘Hiya, Brenda, love! I thought you was at work.’ Lunging for her, he planted a wet kiss on her cheek and squeezed her breast through her bright green liveried work fleece. ‘C’mere gorgeous. Give Pad— Kenny a kiss.’

Brenda giggled girlishly and blushed. Swiped his hand away delicately. ‘Not in public, Kenneth. Come on. I’ll walk you home. I’m not due back off my dinner for half an hour. I’ll microwave you something to soak up the booze. Have you got anything in?’

Paddy grabbed at his crotch. ‘I’ve always got something in for you, Brenda!’ The polar opposite of Sheila, he thought, eyeing up this new easy lay that he’d met during the pub’s quiz night. All pillowy breasts and a nice big fat arse. He had never thought that would be his thing, but Brenda – recently abandoned by her ex and desperately needing a man to bestow her womanly love on – was comforting and obliging. She made good stew and cleaned his house for him. A man like him shouldn’t go without.

Sturdy, reliable Brenda steered him along the road towards the purgatorial two-up, two-down that he had rented in Kenneth Wainwright’s name. Rent paid by the dole. Furnished sparsely with MDF shit from the catalogue.

‘Right, let’s get you a nice, strong cup of tea,’ Brenda said, rummaging in his trouser pocket and finding his keys.

Paddy stumbled through the door, making a beeline for the old-fashioned sofa – a British Heart Foundation shop classic in threadbare wine jacquard. The cig burns were all his. As the institutional magnolia-painted walls spun around him, he took out his phone. Realised Brenda was otherwise occupied, clattering around in the kitchen – no doubt looking for something edible among the empties and the mouldy takeout leftovers. He dialled the number that appeared most frequently in his call log, apart from Katrina’s and Brenda’s.

The familiar gravelly voice at the other end: ‘All right, Paddy? How’s it going?’

‘Don’t use my bleeding name!’ he said, checking over his shoulder. No sign of Brenda. The room continued to spin. He drowned out the profuse apologies with his reason for calling. ‘What have you found out? Anything?’

There was a brief pause. Squeaking – perhaps the sound of a window being wound up on a vehicle. ‘That detective has been sat outside your old house day and night, from what I can tell,’ his oldest school friend and now paid ally said. ‘It’s hard to say without getting inside the property. I followed her into town this morning though. She took a big sack of something into a safety deposit facility.’

‘And? Have you seen her with any men?’

There was another pause. The sound of a cigarette being lit, inhaled, exhaled. ‘The only one she knocks around with is Conky McFadden. I’ve seen them together in her car, coming out of her drive.’

Paddy scratched at his four-day-old stubble, mulling over the news. Was it unreasonable that Sheila would have retained Conky’s services? No. And it was highly unlikely that she’d be shagging the big, ugly bastard. Not after she’d had Paddy O’Brien giving it to her for all those years like a proper man.

‘Try to get closer,’ he said. ‘Keep an eye on that cow, Gloria Bell, too. And I want to know where she lives. I’ve got a bone to pick with that lump of shit she calls a son.’

‘The black woman? She’s a crafty bastard, that one. Slippery, like. I can never keep tabs on her. I’ve tried following her, like you asked, but she always does a bloody Houdini.’

‘Try harder, then,’ Paddy said, thinking of Sheila and reaching into his jogging bottoms to grab his erect penis. He started to massage himself rhythmically. ‘That’s what I’m paying you for, isn’t it? I want information, not a damned sightseeing tour!’

Ending the call, he withdrew his hand from his jogging bottoms and hurled the phone onto the sofa. Hauled himself to his feet, swaying slightly, watching the scuffed skirting board move upwards, upwards, downwards, rising and falling in waves like a heat shimmer created from alcohol fumes. Brenda.

Weaving his way to the kitchen at the back of the terrace, he found his humble, willing shelf-stacker checking on the progress of a pie through the greasy oven door. He started to yank his jogging bottoms and underpants down, eyeing Brenda’s ample bottom as she knelt down.

‘Brenda, love,’ he said. ‘Grab the worktop. I’ve got something to give you.’

Glancing over her shoulder with a watery smile on her unadorned lips, she stood up, and turning, caught sight of Paddy’s erection. Baulked.

‘Oh, Kenneth. I’ve got to be back in work in five minutes.’ She pointed to the clock. ‘I’m already running late. I’ll get told off by the manager.’

But Paddy wasn’t interested in Brenda’s work concerns or tardiness. He wanted what he wanted.

‘Don’t come all coy with me,’ he said, advancing towards her. Grabbing her around her stout middle and pressing her large breasts against him. Grinding his penis into her stomach. ‘You love giving me the runaround, don’t you?’ He reached behind her and hitched up her frowsy skirt. Yanked at her knickers and stuck his finger inside her, enjoying the feel of her struggling against him.

‘I’m going to be late, Ken!’ She giggled nervously, clearly unsure as to whether she should be flattered or affronted. ‘We can do this properly later when you’ve slept the booze off. You’re hurting me! The drawer handle’s digging in my bum.’

‘I’m going to fuck you through to the other side of Christmas,’ he said. ‘Your arse will be hurting from more than a frigging handle when I’ve finished with you.’

She tried to push him away. ‘No, Ken! I need the work!’

‘My chunky monkey.’ He could feel she was dry and unyielding. It didn’t matter. In fact, that was better. Made him feel like a triumphant Viking, claiming his spoils.

The fingernails digging in his neck and the knee in his inner thigh, however, were unexpected.

‘No, Ken! No!’ Anger contorted Brenda’s smooth moon-face into something unfamiliar and unwelcome.

When he brought his fist down on her defiant face, he was pleased to see that it knocked the rebellion and fire out of her immediately.

He stood back to admire his work. completely unaware of Brenda’s teenaged son, Kyle, who should have been at school but who had bunked off straight after chemistry, following his mother to her boyfriend’s house. Now, stealthy, keen-eyed Kyle was lurking in the doorway, watching this domestic noir unfold.

Deciding the thump was assault enough, Paddy put his deflating penis – unreliable thanks to the alcohol slopping around inside him – back inside his pants.

Brenda cowered before him, sobbing, with hurt in her eyes that he found almost delicious. She pulled her skirt back down. ‘Your pie’s ready.’ She wiped her tears away with the sleeve of her supermarket fleece.

Paddy said the words he knew would be balm for the bruise. They worked every time on women like her. ‘You know I love you, don’t you, Bren?’

Chapter 5 (#ulink_22e6bc9a-8aac-5d64-bd20-28af4e1bbc58)

Youssuf

‘Ah. There you are! At last,’ Youssuf said in Urdu as his son Tariq marched towards him, wearing a concerned look on his face.

Grabbing his walking stick optimistically, contemplating hoisting himself off the leather sofa that was positioned against the wall near Tariq’s office, Youssuf opened his mouth to ask again if he was ready to drive him over to the old people’s day centre.

But Tariq had already disappeared into his office. And Youssuf’s words were swallowed by Mohammed, the book-keeper, who breezed past with his own demands, clutching at a sheaf of paperwork.

‘Tariq! What do you want me to do about this faulty order?’ Mohammed asked, pausing at the threshold to the office. Fingering the brass plate telling everyone that a Director occupied the sacred space beyond the door, with its big, oak desk and only slightly worn brown carpet tiles. ‘You know? For the other site.’

Tariq reappeared in the doorway, thumbing his beard contemplatively. Youssuf waved frantically at him, hoping to catch his attention, but his son’s focus was reserved solely for Mohammed.

‘Get the supplier on the phone. I’ll speak to them.’ He dropped his voice to a whisper, though Youssuf could hear well enough. ‘I can’t sell poorly recorded porn films as the latest from Leo DiCaprio. They’ve got a cheek. This is Jonny’s contact, isn’t it?’ He tutted. Finally, Tariq glanced towards his father. Scratched at the beard, clearly distracted. Turned back to Mohammed. ‘Not out here.’ He held his hand up to Youssuf, fingers splayed. ‘Five minutes, Dad. I promise.’ Slammed the door to the office.

Except Youssuf had been promised five minutes at least forty minutes ago and his bottom had gone numb.

‘This is nonsense,’ Youssuf muttered, rubbing his stomach that growled audibly, even beneath the layers of his tunic, cardigan and overcoat. He checked his watch, barely able to see the time clearly as his hand trembled with ill health and low blood sugar. It was almost midday. He’d spent too long with too many tablets in his system and nothing to eat beyond the toast that his daughter-in-law, Anjum, had given him for breakfast. The prospect of missing out on lunch at the day centre was a grim one. That stuck-up old idiot, Ibrahim, was sure to snaffle all the bhajis as was his wont if he didn’t get there soon. It wasn’t that great a distance to walk. Not if he paced himself.

With a grunt, he rose from the low sofa, donned his karakul hat and made his way downstairs. The staff of T&J Trading smiled benignly at him. Even the girl on the desk bade him a friendly, ‘Morning, Mr Khan!’ But nobody stopped him.