Morden Man

The Crew – "The Long Good Friday" (A British Noir RP)

Earlsfield
2:52 PM

Lucy’s slight shoulders rocked back and forward rhythmically as she sobbed. She had broken in seconds. Coach could tell from the moment he saw her that she wasn’t part of his world – and she certainly wasn’t the type to aid and abet a rat like Freddy Reams. Once Lucy got to talking the details came pouring out of her one after another for the best part of twenty minutes. Freddy’s girl Debbie had borrowed her car the night before the job. It was sloppy, completely unlike Reams, which meant that it was either a last minute job on Reams’ part or the girl was cutting corners. Coach would put his money on the second option.

The sobbing continued. Then came explanation after explanation. Anderson had lent Debbie the car on a half dozen or so occasions but had no idea what she’d been doing. For what it was worth Coach believed her – and even went so much as to offer Lucy a conciliatory hug to stop the worst of the crying.

“There there,” Coach said as he patted Anderson on the back comfortingly. “You weren’t to know what was going on.”

Anderson drew back and looked at “Fenwick” with teary eyes. “You’re not going to arrest me, are you?”

It occured to Coach suddenly that the poor girl had presumed he was police. He’d get a laugh out of that for a couple of weeks. It had to be the moustache, he thought, with a self-deprecating smile.

“No, Lucy, I’m not going to arrest you.”

The door from the kitchen opened and Lucy’s grandmother Nancy returned with a plate of sandwiches. Coach accepted them gratefully and the old woman returned to the kitchen to make some tea. Crowder looked through the stack of sandwiches, selecting a ham and cheese one from among them.

He scoffed at it greedily. “Next time your grandmother tells you something you listen to her, alright? That club’s no place for a girl like you. It’ll eat you up eventually just like it did your mate Debbie – and then there’ll be no coming back for you.”

Lucy nodded guilty as she wiped her red eyes. “I understand.”
Coach swallowed the last of the sandwich and then produced a folded piece of paper from his pocket. He plucked a pencil from the table next to him and pushed both in Lucy’s direction.

“Now I need you to write down the name of the place Debbie’s been taking her punters.”

Lucy stared down at the paper with the pencil in her hand. There was a worried look on her face, as if she feared what fate would befall her friend Debbie if she divulged the address, but Coach gave her a reassuring pat on the knee. She steeled herself and wrote down the address and handed the sheet of paper back.

Coach looked down at the address and then smiled approvingly at Anderson. “That’s a good girl.”

The door to the kitchen again opened and this time Coach shot to his feet. He apologised to Nancy for not being able to stay longer and plucked some notes from his wallet. He thrust them into Lucy’s hands and laid a supportive hand on her shoulder as he left them there. He felt lousy about the rouse – lousier still that it would take all of thirty seconds before it fell through once he’d gone – but it had got him what he needed. He had Freddy in his sights.

The thought of getting his hands on Freddy got him to Chiswick in record time despite Yorkie’s struggling motor almost giving out on him halfway there. Finucci’s was the best Italian restaurant in West London. It was almost always deserted. They had met there to plan to the Loomis job three years ago. Bobby was puffing on a cigarette in a corner booth.

“Sorry I’m late, Bobby, but I think you’ll agree it was worth the wait.”

Coach reached into his pocket and produced the address that Lucy had written down for him. He offered it towards Bobby who unfolded it and squinted at the writing.

A frown appeared on the Pole’s face. “What’s this?”

“I tracked down Freddy’s motor – turns out it belonged to a colleague of the blonde bird in the driver’s seat. You’ll never guess where she worked?”

Bobby shrugged.

“The Playboy Club,” Coach said with a grin.

Bobby looked at him without a glimmer of recognition.

“Come off it,” Coach protested. “You must have heard of the Playboy Club? It only opened up this time last year, for christ’s sake. It’s the one with the girls in the bunny costumes. You know the one.”

Still nothing from Lewandowski.

“Well fuck me then,” Coach said with a disappointed shake of the head. “The blonde’s name is Debbie. Turns out she uses her job at the club to moonlight as a prozzie. When she’s almost skint she borrows her poor old mate Lucy’s burgundy coupe to take clients to a flat in Putney.”

The young Pole’s eyes widened with shock. “Freddy knows about this business?”

“Fuck if I know,” Coach shrugged. “But it’s the closest thing we’ve got to a lead on either one of them at the moment.”

Bobby nodded in agreement. “Charlie is after the diamonds, looking for buyers. We’ll see where this address of yours takes us.”

With that Lewandowski rose from his seat and brushed past Coach. The taxi driver let out a heavy sigh, as if the strain of the past thirty-six hours had began to wear on him, and then reached over and grabbed a couple of breadsticks from a jar on the table. He followed after the Pole, nodding in old man Finucci’s direction as they left the restaurant and climbed in Yorkie’s car.

Next stop: Putney.

Ultimate One Universe - Year-One Style DC And Marvel Shared Universe

Master Bruce as Batman.
Eddie as Spider-Man.
Henry as Captain America.

Ultimate One Universe - Year-One Style DC And Marvel Shared Universe

How do I "opt out" of this exchange?

Ultimate One Universe - Year-One Style DC And Marvel Shared Universe

I still haven't settled on one idea.

Moon Knight, Dr Fate, and the Fantastic Four have all been under consideration. I had a lot of fun playing F4 (very briefly) in New Frontier so might go with them. I'll see what other people do once the OOC thread is up, I guess.

Ultimate One Universe - Year-One Style DC And Marvel Shared Universe

Byrd threatened to stop participating in our 1X1 if I didn't get involved in this, so here I am.

The Crew – "The Long Good Friday" (A British Noir RP)

Earlsfield
2:37 PM

Coach took one last glimpse down at the name and address DI Eddie Dunphy had provided him with to make sure he was in the right place. Victoria Mews was a sleepy little road opposite Wandsworth Cemetery that housed mostly pensioners. It was unlikely Fingers was going to be laid up here. He was a professional. The burgundy coupe he’d escaped in was likely stolen from one of the old fogeys here earlier in the week. But the clock was ticking and Crowder didn’t have much else to go on so he made the walk up to to number sixteen all the same.

As Coach reached the dark green front door he removed his hat and straightened out his hair hastily. Once he was convinced that it was all in order Crowder rapped his knuckles against the door gently. There was stirring from inside the house.

The door opened to reveal an elderly woman with wispy hair and thick-rimmed glasses.

“Good afternoon,” Coach said with an unassuming smile. “Is it a Miss Robertson?”

“I haven’t been ‘Miss’ anything for a very long time, young man,” the elderly woman responded with a shake of her head. “You’re after my granddaughter Lucy.”

Coach’s ears pricked up. “Is Lucy in?”

The old woman shook her head disapprovingly.

“I’m afraid not. She’s a very busy girl, very busy, indeed. Ever since she started working at that club of hers, I barely see her anymore. She’s always coming and going.”

Could it be? No, there was no chance, Coach told himself under his breath. Fingers was too slick to have made his getaway girl to use her own car – but from the little Crowder had seen of the woman in the driver’s seat that morning, she had the look of a club girl. Blonde shoulder length hair, piercing blue eyes, full lips. Maybe there was something to it.

A hacking cough from the old woman dragged Coach back. “What were you after, dear?”

“I’m afraid I’m here to offer an apology of sorts,” he said with an earnestness that would have put Bobby to shame. “You see, this morning I gave Lucy’s coupe a bit of a knock while trying to pass her on the road. I didn’t have time to stop but I made a note of her details. I had hoped to apologise in person.”

The old woman nodded along to Coach’s tale intently and then let out a disapproving tut.

“Accidents happen. I didn’t approve of her driving that silly thing in the first place but Lucy insists. You know how they are once they start growing up, they think they know best.”

Coach was on the verge of inventing an adult child of his own to agree with the old woman when one of her greying hands reached out towards him.

“Do come in for a cup of tea, Mr…?”

“Fenwick,” Coach smiled coyly as he shook the woman’s hand. “Roger Fenwick.”

Lucy Anderson’s house proved to be well-kept. Between cups of tea Nancy showed “Roger” pictures of Lucy as a young child, with her parents who had passed away twelve years ago, and of at a ballet recital when she was fifteen. She was a looker, alright. It came as no surprise when the old woman complained to him of Lucy’s choice of workplace.

It was the Playboy Club.

That too set alarm bells ringing in Coach’s head. The Playboy Club had only been open a year but had fast become a success with London’s high rollers. A star-studded cast of actors and sportsmen made their way through its doors on a nightly basis to drink and gamble to their heart’s contents.

As one of the Bunnies, it was Lucy’s job to make sure club members never saw the bottom of their glass – and to look pretty doing it. Coach had heard rumblings of what kinds of things went on behind closed doors there. Girls barely out of school being passed around by whole football teams. It was enough to make your stomach turn.

“I had hoped that our Lucy would become a nurse,” Nancy sighed. “She has the bedside manner for it. Such an agreeable girl. Her mother and I brought her up properly, y’see. It’s an important for a young woman to know her airs and graces in today’s world. Don’t you agree, Mr. Fenwick?”

Coach nodded meekly as he neared the end of his cup of tea. “I couldn’t agree more,”

The sound of a key gliding into place turned Coach’s head.

“Oh, that will be Lucy now,” Nancy smiled as she gestured towards the front door.

Coach heard the door open and shoes being slid off with a contented sigh. He set down his cup and saucer and sat forward in his seat. As the club girl rounded the door into the living room, Nancy announced Mr. Fenwick’s presence.

“Lucy, dear, you have a visitor.”

Their eyes locked. They were every bit as blue and piercing as the eyes that Coach had seen that morning. Her blonde, shoulder length hair was almost exactly the same too, but there was something not right. It wasn’t her – but the flicker of fear as she laid eyes on him spoke volumes.

Whoever Lucy Anderson was, she knew something about what had happened that morning.

“Hello,” the blonde said with a smile. “I don’t think we’ve met before?”

Her grandmother felt the tension in her voice. “Relax, dear, Mr. Fenwick is not some deranged member of that club of yours. He hit your car this morning and stopped by to make amends.”

Coach stood up from his seat and offered Lucy his hand.

“My name is Roger,” Coach smiled. “You do drive a burgundy coupe, don’t you? I do hope there’s not been some kind of confusion.”

“Yes, that glorified baked bean can is hers,” Nancy responded gruffly on her granddaughter’s behalf.

Lucy’s blue eyes darted back and forth as she tried to make sense of what was happening. Were the circumstances not so dire, Coach might have sympathised with her – finding a strange man in your home was unnerving to say the least. Especially when you had something to hide.

“Shake the man’s hand, dear,” Nancy insisted from her armchair. “Don’t be rude.”

Lucy shook Coach’s hand weakly and then proceeded to hang her coat up on a coat stand in the corner of the room. Her limbs moved slowly, as if she thought that each step took her closer to her demise, and prolonging each movement might help her devise some kind of escape.

Coach glanced out of the window at the space in front of the house.

“Don’t tell me you’ve already taken the car to the garage,” he said glumly.

“No, no, I... The car’s not in the garage.“

Nancy peered up at her granddaughter with concern. “You look famished, Lucy. Why don’t I make some sandwiches for you and Mr. Fenwick here?”

“That would be lovely,” Coach said with a grateful smile.

The elderly woman lifted herself out of her seat and hobbled her way to the kitchen. Coach made sure to close the door behind her and then turned to face Lucy with a scowl.

“Correct me if I’m wrong but I have a feeling there’s something you need to get off your chest, love.”

The Crew – "The Long Good Friday" (A British Noir RP)

Fulham
1:49 PM

Etan Ben-David eyed up the mouldy apartment building with a grimace. From the outside it was not dissimilar to from own building in Brixton. The differences became clearer when he entered it. Where Etan’s housed mostly Carribbeans and Asians unable to find accommodation elsewhere, the building that Zinkman & Sons security guard Colin Craggs lived in mostly seemed to cater for alcoholics. Its gloomy corridors were lined with men with bulbous stomachs eyeing Ben-David suspiciously.

Craggs was the last of the security guards on Etan’s list. The first two had checked out. He’d visited them both at their homes and asked a long list of questions designed to confirm their whereabouts, any potential criminal associations they might have, but most importantly of all their character. Character mattered to Mr. Zinkman more than anything else.

One of Ben-David’s fists slammed against the door to Colin Cragg’s apartment. Dust rattled free from the doorframe. From inside the apartment Etan could hear footsteps approaching the door slowly. The peephole turned black as Colin pressed his eye against it.

“Who are you?”

“I’m an associate of Mr. Zinkman,” Ben-David said calmly.

“Oh yeah,” Craggs said as he opened the door with a frown. “Well if you haven’t noticed it’s the weekend, so whatever you’re here to talk about can wait until Tuesday.”

He was a tall man. Six foot three, pushing at least sixteen or seventeen stone, with arms that looked like granite – or at least had looked like granite once upon a time. Ex-military, Etan thought for a second, though one peek into Craggs’ filthy apartment banished that idea from his mind in an instant.

Ben-David stepped forward. “I’m afraid it cannot wait.”

Colin attempted to slam the door shut but one of Etan’s feet kept it jammed open. The two men struggled quietly for a few moments, the drunkards in the hallway watching on in bemusement, until finally Ben-David got the better of Cragg and pushed his way in.

“What the hell are you doing?” Colin shouted as he followed after Etan. “Zinkman or no Zinkman, you can’t just barge your way into my house.”

It wasn’t much of a house. His own domicile was Spartan. He needed very little in the way of creature comforts. The camps had seen to it that Ben-David never quite developed an appetite for food or drink, even less so for paintings or wall hangings. He knew what scarcity looked like – and what it was to be truly starving. But Craggs’ apartment was something altogether different than that. It was the filth that set Etan aback. It looked like someone had set a pack of wild hogs loose inside of it for weeks on end.

He gritted his teeth and turned to face Craggs. “I just want to ask you a few questions.”

In the openness of Colin’s living room, all six foot three inches of the security guard loomed larger than it had done through a crack in a doorway. His shadow crept towards Etan as he approached him. He stopped a few centimetres away from Ben-David and prodded him in the chest with a finger as long as a child’s forearm.

“And I told you that your questions can wait until Tuesday.”

“Call the police,” Ben-David said coolly.

“Pardon me?”

“You heard me,” Etan reiterated. This time he reached for Craggs’ phone and pressed it towards the security guard’s chest. “Call the police and tell them there’s an intruder in your home that’s refusing to leave.”

Craggs said nothing. The look on his face revealed everything that Etan needed to know about the man. He might not have been involved in the break-in at the Diamond Exchange, but there was something that wasn’t quite kosher about Colin and Etan intended to find out what it was.

“Sit down.”

Ben-David set the telephone back down on the table and pulled a small notepad from one of his pockets.

“Where were you last night, Mr. Craggs?”

“Same place I am every night,” Craggs grumbled from across the table. “Right here in my front room.”

“Can anyone corroborate that?”

Colin muttered a profanity under his breath and then gestured to the filth around him. “Does it look like I entertain often?”

Etan wrote the words “NO ALIBI” beneath Colin’s name in his notepad. He took a few moments to write down some other observations about Craggs: all along the lines of belligerent and uncooperative. Nervous, he added last, as he noticed that Colin’s knee was bouncing up and down beneath the table.

Finally Craggs seemed to give in to the impatience. “What exactly am I being accused of here?”

“There was an incident at the Exchange last night – a break-in that resulted in the loss of some precious stones. One that could not happened without the assistance, tacit or otherwise, of a Zinkman & Sons employee.”

Ben-David’s eyes were trained on Craggs. There was nothing. He was no more or less nervous than he had been before Etan had told him. It irked him. There were enough pieces here to put the security guard in the frame for something but Ben-David still wasn’t sure how the pieces fit. Was Craggs driving the black car that fled the scene? There had to be something.

He repeated the information Colin had already given him in the hope that some tiny tell would show on the security guard’s face. “You are the only Zinkman & Sons employee without an alibi for last night.”

“Well, that doesn’t make any sense,” Craggs said with a mocking laugh. “Surely if I was in on it I would have gone out of my way to get one? I mean, it might not look like it from the state of this place, but I do have some friends. Why wouldn’t I get one of them to lie for me and say I was with them?”

Etan could not fault the security guard’s logic. It had been a desperate move on his part, maybe too desperate, he thought as it appeared Craggs too realised the weakness of Ben-David’s position. A self-satisfied grin appeared on Colin’s face.

There was a faint squeak from the corner of the room. Ben-David’s eyes shot in its direction. Cragg’s grin disappeared and a second, more intense wave of nervousness seemed to flood over him as he spotted Etan eyeing a stack of boxes.

“Is there something you aren’t telling me, Mr. Craggs?”

Ben-David stood up from his seat and started towards them.

Colin leapt from his seat. “What are you doing? Get away from there.”

It was too late. Etan weaved his way through the mess of discarded cans of beer and mice droppings towards the boxes. He popped one of them open and stared down at its contents. There were dozens and dozens of pictures. It took him a moment to divine the nature of the pictures but once he did he grimaced in shock.

They were children. Some no older than five or six. Craggs was frozen to the spot as Etan knocked the top box over, spilling the pictures across Colin’s filthy floor, and tore open the next one. There was more of the same. Etan could feel his blood boiling as he made his way through the piles. He threw a handful of the pictures onto the ground and then made his way towards the door.

“Oi! Where are you going?” Craggs appealed to him. “Those pictures aren’t mine. You have to believe me – I don’t know how they got in there.”

As he reached the front door one of Colin’s huge hands wrapped around his wrist. It was wet through. He did his best to tug his arm away but Cragg tightened his grip on his arm. Without a second’s hesitation, Ben-David brought the heel of his shoe down on the side of Cragg’s kneecap. There was a loud crunch and Colin fell to the ground in a heap.

Etan looked down on him scornfully, considering for a moment whether to draw for his weapon and end his pitiful life right there and then. No, he remembered, he had made a promise to Mr. Zinkman. That came above all else.

“May God have mercy on your soul,” Ben-David murmured in Yiddish as he took his leave.

The Crew – "The Long Good Friday" (A British Noir RP)

The Pale Horse
Battersea
1:02 PM

Eddie Dunphy sat alone at a corner table in his favourite haunt. The Pale Horse was a good pub. It was never too busy, the staff were discrete, and best of all they served a mean pint of Guinness. He’d become something of a regular in the past few months. The turf war between the Binneys and Carlisle’s clan had dragged on longer than anyone had expected. Carlisle had been got in the first month and Alan and Albie expected the rest of the old man’s inner circle to see sense and fold. They hadn’t done. It had created a lot of work everyone down at Scotland Yard, Dunphy included.

Between that and the kerfuffle at Wembley last year it had been tough going for Eddie. The side deals he used to make to supplement his copper’s wage had all but dried up. That failed venture with Hanky Harry had set him back some and now he’d been forced to work all the overtime he could get his hands on. It was all a bit of a nightmare.

It’s why Eddie had jumped at the chance when word came through this morning of a little side action. Nothing major from the sounds of it. A punter trying to track someone down. Low-risk, low-reward work. Dunphy had agreed to meet them here at quarter to one. It one o’clock now and the bastard hadn’t shown yet. Dunphy was getting antsy when he spotted the door opening.

Through it stepped a slightly heavy-set man in his mid-to-late forties. A thick moustache sat atop his top lip. Eddie could tell from the way he carried himself that it was his man.

The man reached into his pocket and produced his wallet. “What’s your poison?”

“A pint of Guinness will do me fine,” Dunphy said. “Get us some pork scratchings while you’re up there, would you?”

“Of course,” the man said with a nod.

After a short wait the man returned holding a pint of Guinness in each hand and the scratchings that Eddie had requested. He set the pints down expertly and then plonked the packet of pork scratchings down in front of Dunphy with a cheerful smile. To anyone watching on, the two men could have easily been two friends meeting to blow off some steam after a long week at work.

Dunphy tore open the scratchings and pushed them into the centre of the table. He offered some to the man, who shook his head disapprovingly, before lifting his pint to take a sip. At the last second he stopped himself and pushed the Guinness out towards Eddie. Dunphy muttered a quiet “cheers” and they clinked their glasses together with thin, unconvincing smiles.

“How’s business?”

“Business?” Dunphy replied nonchalantly. “Oh, busy as usual. You know how things are at this time of year – it’s always one thing after another. And you?”

The man shrugged his shoulders. “Can't complain. The old ball and chain’s still breathing down my neck but that’s to be expected.”

“Women, eh?” Eddie chuckled and then took a healthy mouthful of Guinness that left his upper lip covered in foam. “What is it that they say? You can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

They shared a sincere laugh. Dunphy crunched on another pork scratching and shot a polite smile to the pub landlord. He nodded knowingly and broke of his gaze towards a customer that had just entered. Eddie took another sip of his Guinness, after which he let out a contented sigh.

The man cleared his throat. “On the phone you mentioned you had a tip for me. A sure thing?”

“Ah, that’d be the 3:15 at Aintree,” Dunphy smiled and began to root around in his pockets. “Give me a second, I can’t remember the bastard’s name for the life of me. I’ve got it written down somewhere here.”

Eddie produced a folded up piece of paper with the details the man had asked for on it. The registration details of the owner of a burgundy coupe. Thankfully the motor hadn’t set off any alarm bells. When Dunphy was starting out on the force he’d had some little fucker ask him to run some plates, only to find the vehicle in question belonged to his uncle Jack Donoghue. As far as he could recall the poor lad ended up at the bottom of a canal somewhere.

Dunphy stood up from his seat and tipped the rest of the Guinness down his throat. Once he was done he set the empty glass down on the table with a slam.

“Tell the missus I send my love.”

The Crew – "The Long Good Friday" (A British Noir RP)

New Cross
8:51 AM

Bobby awoke with a jolt as his elbow slipped from the ledge of the passenger side door. Coach smiled in his direction from the driver’s seat. It took Lewandowski a few seconds to get his bearings but slowly he began to recall the last few hours. Coach had called on an old friend by the name of Yorkie to help them out. He’d shown up in Honor Oak Park with a tow truck with one of his younger brothers in another car following behind him. The Mathis brothers had loaded the wrecked cab onto the tow truck and Coach had given them the address of a garage, then Bobby had piled into the car with him.

There was a cup of cold tea resting on the dashboard. Bobby reached for it and took a grateful mouthful of it before looking over at Coach. “It is good that Red is okay.”

“Yes, it is,” Crowded nodded.

They had left Turner in the care of Mariana Thompkins. Their relationship still confused Bobby – the nurse had the run of all three of them, but she’d definitely had the run of Coach most of all. There was something else going on there. The Pole thought for a second to ask about her but his timidity got the better of him. It, however, did not go completely unnoticed by Coach.

“Is there something you want to ask me, Bobby?”

“This nurse,” Bobby enquired sheepishly. “How do you know her?”

Coach shook his head wistfully as he steered the car after the tow truck. “How much time do you have?”

“Ten years ago Mariana was engaged to some big-shot doctor at the time. His old man was Chief Medical Officer – some blue-blooded type with two last names and a “Sir” before his first one. You know the type. Anyway, so this kid meets Mariana while travelling across Spain. He’s out there helping some poor kids or something. Fuck knows. Somehow the pair of them fall in love. He decides to bring her over to England where she doesn’t know a soul. Being no more than a kid herself she jumps at the chance.”

A mischievous smile appeared on his face. “That’s when yours truly comes in.”

“Back then I used to make a little money doing chauffeuring on the side every now and again. Picture it if you can, me all dressed up in my Sunday best driving around people with more money than sense.”

Bobby swallowed another mouthful of cold tea and encouraged Coach to continue. “And one of them was this Mariana woman?”

“Correct,” Coach nodded. “Turns out Mr. Doctor’s not around much. I end up driving Mariana around town every weekend for the best part of six months. As you’d expect in those circumstances, we grew … close. Closer than we should have got, if you know what I mean.”

The Pole couldn’t work out whether Coach’s story was romantic or desperately sad. He knew what it was like to be a stranger in a foreign land. He knew how isolating it could be to be apart from your family and friends. He’d felt that way until he and Klaudia had grown close. Now he was on the verge of proposing to her he couldn’t stomach the thought of going back to his old life. It was only then that Bobby remembered that Coach himself was married and had been for a long time – Carol, he recalled.

“But this was ten years ago, no?” Bobby asked as he realised the arithmetic didn’t quite add up. “Your wife?”

A guilty look appeared on Coach’s face.

“Trust me, you don’t need to remind me, Bobby. I haven’t always been the world’s best husband, I’ll admit. I won’t sit here and pretend that I have. You saw her, though. She’s beautiful, isn’t she? That a woman that looked like that would so much as look in my direction … it made me lose my senses. I’d never so much as looked in another woman’s direction until Mariana came along. And I haven’t since. But she was different.”

Bobby did his best to put himself in Coach’s shoes, but it was no good. Klaudia was the only woman he’d ever loved, he couldn’t imagine being untrue to her because of something so fleeting as looks. Though he had to admit that Mariana was beautiful, even if she had been seething from the moment they had met.

“If you loved one another, why did she seem so angry with you?”

“Well,” Coach sighed. “You might have noticed she’s working at a vets and not being ferried around in fancy motors anymore. Let’s just say I have something to do with that.”

A bemused look appeared on Bobby’s face as he tried to decode the meaning of Coach’s statement. “I don’t understand.”

“Her old man found out what was going on. He got me sacked, of course, which was no real skin off my nose if I’m honest with you, but worse of all he called off the engagement. He didn’t want to, mind. But daddy wouldn’t have him marrying an adulteress, no sir. Never you mind that the cheeky bastard was getting his end away elsewhere every time he left Mariana behind.”

Lewandowski grimaced.

“Your wife, does she know?”

Coach let out a heavy sigh. In all the years that Bobby had known the taxi driver, he had only ever seen him upset once – that day on Putney Heath after the Cecil boy had committed suicide. Now for a second time, the Pole saw Coach moved to sadness.

“It would break her heart.”

He shook his head, as if trying to clear it of cobwebs, and then smiled in Bobby’s direction. “Love’s a complicated thing, Bobby.”

After a few minutes, Coach signalled to the truck in front of them to stop. He let Bobby out outside of a train station and they said their goodbyes. Bobby was going to head home to get a couple of hours of sleep in before they made their next steps. As he approached the turnstiles, Coach’s story rattled around his brain. He thought of Coach’s wife Carol and all the nights she must have spent alone and then of his own girlfriend Klaudia. He would hold her a little tighter when he got home.

***

Streatham
9:34 AM

He’d done it. The unthinkable. Once he’d dropped Bobby off at the station, Coach had raided the dash of Yorkie’s brother’s motor and found a loose, near-broken cigarette. As if this business with Fingers wasn’t bad enough, dredging up ancient history had left Crowder feeling morose and in need of some nicotine. It had more than done the job.

By the time the Mathis brothers and Coach had pulled into Coach’s old haunt, Proctor Motor Repairs, he was back to himself again. He’d bunged Yorkie a tidy sum for his help and sworn him to secrecy as they offloaded the battered taxi onto the lot of the garage. It hadn’t taken long to arouse the interests of the garage’s namesake.

“As I live and breathe!” Archie Proctor bellowed as he appeared out of his grubby little office. “Jamie-fucking-Crowder in the flesh. Is it really you or are these old eyes of mine deceiving me?”

Coach smiled sheepishly. “It’s me, alright.”

Proctor was pushing seventy and weighed upwards of twenty stone. He’d always been a bigger man, but he’d grown bigger still in the years since Coach had left, and now needed the help of a cane to walk around.

He thrust one of his gelatinous hands towards Coach, who shook it warmly. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Crowder pointed over his shoulder at the taxi.

“I need a favour.”

The two men inspected the taxi together for around five minutes. Proctor prodded loose bits of it with his cane and peered through the bullet holes in the ceiling. With each prod of the cane, he let out a disappointed tut and Coach was sure he was jotting up the bill as he went along. Proctor had been good to him when Coach was starting out – but he was every bit a crook as the Binneys or Kanes.

Finally they retired back to Archie’s office to discuss terms. Proctor sat in an arm-chair that Coach noticed had been reinforced with several planks of wood. Crowder himself declined a seat and stood instead by the grubby window that looked out onto the yard.

“By Monday?” Proctor’s laugh was so deep that his gut wobbled with it. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding. I could work round the clock all weekend and there’s no way I could get that thing sorted out. I’m almost offended you bloody asked.”

Coach pinched the bridge of his nose. “Come on, Proctor.”

“Don’t you ‘come on’ me,” Archie said, brandishing one of his sausage-like fingers at Coach. “It can’t be done, Jamie.”

A black kid wearing beige trousers, a striped shirt, and a brown flat cap entered the yard. He couldn’t have been any taller than five foot ten but there was a wiry strength to him. At least, there might have been if he had a decent meal once in a while. Even from a distance Coach could tell the kid was starving and in need of a bath.

The kid stopped in front of the damaged taxi in the yard and stared at it with intrigued. He reached one of his brown hands out to touch the wing mirror and as he did so it fell to the ground with a bang. Instinctively the boy’s head spun round and looked in the direction of the office.

Proctor screamed at the kid from his seat. “Oi, what the bloody hell do you think you’re doing? Get away from there, you little bugger.”

Coach smiled. He’d been on the receiving end of Proctor’s temper more times than he could count. “Who’s the kid?”

“Oh, him?” Proctor chuckled. “That’s Clinton. We call him ‘Sparky’ around the yard though. Best mechanic I’ve had on my books since … well, since you left us. Not sure why I waste my breath shouting at him given the black bastard’s as deaf as a bat.”

A frown appeared on Coach’s face.

“Can he speak?”

“No idea,” Proctor said with a dismissive shrug. “Never asked him. We get by using hand signals most days. He can read, but not a lot, so worst case scenario we’ll jot a couple of things down for him or draw him a picture if needs be.”

Coach watched as Clinton reached down to pick up the wing mirror and placed it gently atop the taxi cab’s bonnet. The boy thrust one of his finger’s into the bullet hole in the roof and then drew it back quickly once he realised how sharp the hole was. His knelt down and looked at the wheel that was one nut away from hanging off entirely and screwed up his face a little. Coach recognised that look.

“Why all the interest, eh? Never had you down as a nigger lover, Jamie.”

Crowder exhaled a little and asked for Proctor’s permission to talk to Clinton. Archie was confused as to why he would want to but he allowed it on the proviso that Coach not keep the boy too long. He had a laundry list of jobs that needed doing.

Clinton turned to face Coach as he approached him. He smiled weakly, as if unsure of Crowder’s intention, and the taxi driver offered him a friendly wave. They stood in front of the cab in complete stillness for a few moments before Clinton made a gun sign with his hand and mocked shooting a bullet through the roof. Coach returned the gesture with a knowing smile.

Finally he let out an exasperated sigh and pointed towards the wreck. “Can you fix this?”

Clinton looked at him confused and pointed towards his ears.

“What are you doing? He can’t hear a bloody word you’re saying,” Crowder chastised himself as he rooted around in his pockets.

He pulled free a musty yellow envelope and a pencil and began to write on the back of it. “Can you fix this?” it read. Clinton nodded. “By Monday?” Coach added and handed the envelope to the boy they called Sparky. He stared down at the words, then looked again at the wreckage of a cab, and gritted his teeth.

Sparky’s mouth trembled slightly as he tried to form a word. It had clearly been a long time since he had spoken and even the effort alone looked exhausting. Finally, his lips parted and he nodded determinedly as a single word left his mouth.

“Monday.”

The Crew – "The Long Good Friday" (A British Noir RP)

Honor Oak Park Veterinary Centre
Lewisham
7:12 AM

Sat in the reception of Honor Oak Park’s lone veterinary centre were Bobby, Charlie and Coach. Coach chewed nervously on his nails while thoughts of Wembley raced through his mind. It had been a knock to the head that had sent Cecil’s girlfriend shuffling off her mortal coil. On the long ride over to Lewisham, the taxi driver had considered what would come of the three of them were Red not to pull through. The conclusion he’d arrived at wasn’t good.

Bobby leant towards Charlie with an earnest frown. “Do you think Red will be alright?”

“Do I look like some kind of fucking doctor to you? Quit breathing down my neck.”

The Pole leant back with a defeated look on his face. Coach glanced over at Charlie as if to silently reproach him for speaking to Bobby that way and the Yank begrudgingly acknowledged his disapproval.

“Sorry,” Charlie said with a wince that betrayed how painful he found apologising. “I’m just a little stressed is all.”

“I understand,” Bobby nodded sympathetically. “Red is like a father to you.”

Charlie’s face crumpled up with displeasure. “What? No, that’s not it. Christ, Bobby.”

He stood up from his seat and ran his hands backwards through his dark hair with a heavy sigh. Coach watched him pace. There was something stirring there, milimetres beneath the surface, an anger that was never quelled or contained. In truth, Coach was as scared of what Charlie might do if Red didn’t pull through as he was what might happen to the three of them without Red around. Enfield was a loose cannon at the best of times – he’d proved that during the last job – and now he had all the excuse he wanted to add to his body count.

“Every second that Benedict Arnold is out there is another second those diamonds are nearer to being gone – and then we’re all well and truly fucked.”

Bobby leant forward to voice a complaint. Coach knew what it was before he’d even opened his mouth. He was upset that Charlie cared more about the diamonds than he did Red. It was fair, Coach thought, but that argument wasn’t one he had any interest in listening to. Not least while Turner was laid up on a table in a vets surgery with his life hanging in the balance.

“Could you two just give it a rest for a second?” Coach interjected with an exasperated sigh. “My head’s still pounding.”

So there they sat in complete silence for half an hour more. Charlie and Bobby chain-smoked cigarettes to pass the time. It was all Coach could do but ask for one, but he’d sworn off them, though he was sure a morning like the one they were having was surely the excuse he needed.

Before he could ask the door to the surgery opened and a tall, tanned-skinned woman stepped through it. Her thick-rimmed glasses obscured the dark brown eyes that hid beneath them. She was every bit as beautiful as when Coach had met her ten years ago. Her name was Mariana Thompkins. Once upon a time, when “Coach” went by James Crowder and Mariana Thompkins had been Mariana Lopez, they had been lovers. To say that it hadn’t ended well was an understatement.

Charlie stood up from his seat and took a step towards Thompkins. “What’s the skinny, nurse?”

“He’s conscious,” Mariana purred in an accent that listed back and forward between the Queen’s English and Spanish. “He sustained quite a serious concussion. Whatever it was your friend was hit over the head with, he’s very fortunate that it didn’t fracture his skull.”

Bobby’s head fell into his hands with relief beside Coach. “<Thank God.>”

“I always said that thick skull of his would come in useful one of these days,” Coach said with a smile.

Mariana shot Crowder an icy look.

“It’s not a joking matter, James. Mr. Turner could be bed-bound for a week, several days at the least. He’s showing signs of severe sensitivity to light and sound. When he first regained consciousness he couldn’t tell me which day of the week it was. Had the blow been a half-inch to the left or the right, the three of you could well have been burying your friend. Do you understand?”

“Enough lady,” Charlie said as he pushed his way past the nurse. “We need to speak to Red.”

One of her tanned hands reached out to hold Charlie back and she said in a commanding voice. “He’s not in any fit state to entertain visitors.”

From his seat Coach could see the expression on Charlie’s face begin to turn. He had seen it before. First the eyes narrowed, then the jaw clenched, then the redness set in and before long someone would bear the brunt of his wrath. Given his old flame had just saved their bacon, Coach wasn’t about to let that happen.

“Mariana,” he called out to her with a look that suggested she release Charlie’s arm.

She dutifully let it slip through her fingers and Charlie stepped through the doorway lined with cat cages and dog kennels. Bobby took one last drag of his cigarette and stubbed it out in an ashtray before following after him. Coach and Mariana stood in the reception with one another locked in a pregnant silence.

Finally Coach rose to follow after his colleagues. Mariana reached out for him. He stopped in his tracks and looked past the thick lenses of her glasses into her deep brown eyes. There was no love there, only an unyielding contempt.

“Don’t think this means I’ve forgiven you, James Crowder.”

The surgery table had been transformed into a makeshift bed for Red. As Coach drew closer he noticed the bandages wrapped both around his head and his eyes. They were to help with the light sensitivity, Coach figured.

“How’s it going, Red?” Charlie said from beside Red. “The madam says you’re not ready for visitors. What do you reckon?”

Turner smiled feebly in the direction of Charlie’s voice. “You know me, I’ve seen off worse, old pal.”

“You look like one of those three monkeys,” Coach said, feinting a smile for Red’s sake that he would never see. “You know, those ones from the statues. See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil.”

“What does that make the two of you?”

Bobby and Coach let out a laugh. Even Charlie mustered something of a smile. The young Pole step towards Turner and placed an encouraging hand on Red’s forearm. It brought a smile to Turner’s face straight away, one that didn’t fade when Charlie stepped forward to break the bad news to him.

“Freddy got away, Red.”

Turned nodded as if he’d worked that much out. “That’s unfortunate.”

“What’s the plan?” Charlie asked. “How are we going to get the diamonds back?”

“The diamonds are the least of our problems,” Red responded. “Once I’ve got some shuteye I’ll need to make a visit to some friends of ours.”

Bobby, Charlie and Coach looked at one another awkwardly, unspokenly drawing lots as to who would break the second bout of bad news to him. It seemed to fall to Coach, who grimaced slightly and then cleared his throat as if to announce his presence to Red.

“Pay a visit? Red, I don’t know how to tell you this, but you won’t be visiting anywhere for a few days at least. Mariana said you’re lucky to be alive. You’ve got to stay in bed and get some proper rest.”

“What?” Red said incredulously as he attempted to sit forward. “That’s ridiculous, I’ll be fine once I’ve had a bit of sleep, it was only a knock to the head.”

Coach saw Turner’s hand shoot towards the bandage on his eyes. He reached out to stop him, but the bandage was free and Red’s eyes were open before he had a chance. There was a sharp intake of breath and he nearly stumbled from the table before Thompkins came charging over to stop him.

“What are you doing, Mr. Turner?” Mariana said as she forced the bandages back over his eyes. “I told you that I needed you to lie very still. Are you trying to hurt yourself? Because all it takes is one slip and that concussion of yours could become far more serious.”

“Enough,” Charlie said, shooing her away once he was convinced Red was fine. “You don’t need to baby the man.”

Coach could see Mariana’s face souring at the remark but Red calmed her temper in three small words. “Thank you, nurse.”

Thompkins shuffled out of the room and Coach heard her making preparations to close the surgery for the day. Even with the bandage over Red’s eyes it was clear that he was deep in thought. Skull half-caved in or not, when Turner’s cogs were working, it was always something to behold.

Finally, he broke his silence.

“Charlie, you’ll need to go.”

“Go where?” Charlie asked.

“I had hoped to keep this from you all,” Red said. His voice, ironically, was like that of a doctor delivering bad news to a patient. “And I want you to know that I would never have gone to the nasty sods hat-in-hand for work. They came to me. They had a job that needed doing, one that would be of great benefit to them, but they didn’t have the people for it. They needed professionals.”

Coach was so anxious he’d nearly gnawed through his thumb as Turner spoke. “Spit it out, Red.”

“The Kanes,” Red said with a guilty sigh. “You’re going to have to visit the Kanes.”