The wrong hands, p.1
The Wrong Hands, page 1
THE
WRONG
HANDS
Also by Mark Billingham
The DI Tom Thorne series
Sleepyhead
Scaredy Cat
Lazybones
The Burning Girl
Lifeless
Buried
Death Message
Bloodline
From the Dead
Good as Dead
The Dying Hours
The Bones Beneath
Time of Death
Love Like Blood
The Killing Habit
Their Little Secret
Cry Baby
The Murder Book
The DS Declan Miller series
The Last Dance
Other fiction
In the Dark
Rush of Blood
Cut Off
Die of Shame
Rabbit Hole
THE
WRONG
HANDS
A NEW DETECTIVE MILLER NOVEL
MARK
BILLINGHAM
Atlantic Monthly Press
New York
Copyright © 2024 by Mark Billingham Ltd
Jacket design by Becca Fox Design
Jacket collage using images from Arcangel, and istock
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First published in Great Britain in 2024 by Sphere,
an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group UK.
Printed in the United States of America
First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition: July 2024
Typeset in Plantin by M Rules.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data
is available for this title.
ISBN 978-0-8021-6309-7
eISBN 978-0-8021-6310-3
Atlantic Monthly Press
an imprint of Grove Atlantic
154 West 14th Street
New York, NY 10011
Distributed by Publishers Group West
groveatlantic.com
For Claire, Katie and Jack
He was a stone-cold mechanic out of Miami with a job to do. Just a regular killing. Just some punk who was going to get what was coming to him. It would be a snip.
‘The train now standing at platform two is the 08.37 to York calling at Poulton-le-Fylde, Preston, Blackburn, Accrington . . . ’
He downed two fingers of Beam and checked the Glock strapped beneath his left arm. The weight of it felt good. Like an old friend.
‘Burnley Manchester Road, Hebden Bridge . . . ’
He slapped a five on a ten for the bartender and slid off the barstool. It was time for work.
‘Travellers are reminded that there is no buffet service available on this train. We apologise again—’
‘Oi, Andy!’
‘Oh, sorry, Keith. I was—’
‘Yeah, miles away, course you were. Where the heck have you been? I said half-eight under the clock. It’s nearly twenty to!’ Slack stared and shook his head. ‘Bloody hell, what have you come as?’
Andy Bagnall self-consciously pulled his shirt down over his beer gut and adjusted his ponytail.
‘We’re supposed to be inconspicuous, you dozy twonk.’
‘I am inconspicuous.’
‘In a Hawaiian shirt? You look like you’ve puked up on it.’
‘This is from Florida. My auntie got it for me when she went to Disneyworld last Christmas.’
Slack wasn’t listening. He was staring across the busy station concourse towards the public toilets. Bagnall watched him, and then, for want of anything better to do, he stared as well.
Keith Slack thought this was definitely his best plan ever. Businessmen carried all sorts of valuables in their briefcases. Laptop computers, mobile phones, wallets, iFags. Businessmen had to pee. Businessmen had to pee with two hands. Nobody kept one hand on their briefcase and tried to wrestle out their old feller with the other, and no businessman wanted wee on the bottom of their briefcase, so they put it down a reasonable distance away from the urinal. Slack knew all this because he’d done the research.
Create a diversion. Away with the briefcase. Piece of piss.
‘So, you know what you’re doing, Andy?’
‘When?’
‘In the toilets, mate.’ Slack tried to stay calm. ‘In the bloody bogs.’
‘Oh, yeah. I’m creating a diversion.’
Slack saw a worrying glint in Bagnall’s eye and the flaw in his otherwise perfect plan became glaringly obvious.
‘Now, when I say “diversion” I don’t mean throw a bleedin’ fit or anything. When you see somebody put their bag down, just talk to them. Ask them to help you find a contact lens or summat.’
‘I don’t wear contact lenses, Keith.’
Slack sighed and rubbed his tired eyes.
‘I could ask them to help me find my sunglasses.’
‘It was just an example, Andy. Oh, and make sure it’s a decent briefcase or summat like that. I’m not doing this for some poxy Adidas bag full of rancid football socks, OK? OK, Andy?’
‘Yeah, got it. No socks.’
‘Right, off you go. Just hang about and wash your hands or whatever. I’ll be in in a bit.’
Bagnall ran his fingers through his bleached blond hair and strode off across the concourse, the heels of his cowboy boots clack-clacking on the polished stone. He stopped at the entrance to the toilets and after a moment turned back to look at Slack.
Slack held out his hands and mouthed at him. ‘What?’
Bagnall mouthed back. ‘Can you lend me twenty p?’
Slack knew he was the brains of the outfit, but didn’t that at least imply the other bloke was the muscle? Andy Bagnall was thick as mince and that was all there was to it. They’d do a few more stations after this and then Slack would tell Bagnall he was branching out on his own. OK, so they’d been mates at school, but playing footie and dicking around with Bunsen burners was one thing; when it came to basic thieving, Bagnall was a liability. If he hadn’t actually got his head stuck in some stupid thriller or was pretending he was American, he’d be staring off into space with a gormless expression like someone had sprinkled Mogadon on his cornflakes. Well, sod him, because Keith Slack was moving up. Bagnall could go back to cut-and-shutting Ford Sierras.
Slack ambled towards the toilets. It was time to go and see just how much of a balls-up Bagnall had made of his beautiful plan.
He’d spotted the mark straight away. It was all going down like the Man said. Time to make his play. He was cool, like always. Look nobody in the eye. Mr Invisible. After the hits went down, it was like he’d never been there. Ice cold and no bad dreams. Waste ’em, then go look for the nearest cold beer or hot woman.
Time to roll the dice.
Bagnall reached for his weapon . . .
Bloody Nora, thought Slack, he’s talking to some bloke at the pisser.
Bagnall was indeed calmly urinating while chatting amiably to a tall dark-haired man who, similarly engaged, was standing next to him. Slack saw the abandoned briefcase and strolled towards it, taking in every detail in a matter of seconds.
Nice and chunky, good quality leather.
He began to pick up speed.
Combination locks. He’d have those off with a decent screwdriver.
As he picked up the case, he became aware that Bagnall’s new chum was turning towards him. Slack started to run. As he vaulted the turnstile, the swinging briefcase laid out a middle-aged bloke blithely inserting his 20p on the way in. A hideous scream came from the toilets behind him and rang across the concourse as Slack sprinted away.
Its echo was hot on his heels as he legged it towards the exit and away into Blackpool town centre.
Detective Chief Inspector Bob Perks nursed half a shandy in Scruffy Murphy’s and sat wishing he was more interesting. He didn’t want to be a cliché, like all those coppers on the telly, with broken marriages and drink problems, he just fancied . . . livening his lot up a little. He’d given quirks a go, but the truth was, he ju st wasn’t cut out for them. He wasn’t religious, he didn’t have any strange hobbies (or normal ones, come to that) and with the exception of Michael Bublé (who he adored) he thought most music was rubbish.
He wasn’t like some coppers he could mention. Rats and ballroom dancing, for pity’s sake.
Bob Perks’s life was comfortable and ordered, if a little on the dull side.
An unemployed good-for-nothing from Woodplumpton and an over-imaginative grease monkey from Mereside were about to change things.
When his mobile phone rang, Perks froze. He kept meaning to change the Bublé ringtone (‘Everything’ – his signature song), but could never bring himself to, because Bublé was the business. He shrugged at the pinched faces of the lunchtime regulars as if to say, I’m not an idiot, I’m a high-ranking police officer, so get over it.
‘Sir?’ DS Dominic Baxter was trying to sound efficient, but Perks could hear laughter in the background.
‘Better be good, Dom. I’m having my lunch.’
‘There’s been a robbery at the station, sir.’
‘So? Let Robbery handle it. We’re watching Draper.’
‘That’s just it, sir. It was Draper that got robbed.’
Perks put down his drink. ‘I’m listening, DS Baxter . . . ’
‘Well, Draper was talking to some bloke in the toilets.’
‘Of course he was.’
‘He puts the case down and a second bloke grabs it and legs it out the bogs. This other bloke hurdles over the turnstile, whacks somebody in the face with the briefcase while he’s at it, and . . . ’ Baxter hesitated.
Perks took another sip of beer. At least things were livening up. ‘Sounds like our luck’s in, Dominic. Now we can have a look in the case without blowing the surveillance. Not that we don’t have a pretty good idea what’s in it.’
‘We haven’t got the case, sir. The bloke who nicked it got away.’
There was more laughter in the background. Perks hissed into the phone. ‘What about Draper? Lost him as well?’
‘No, sir, we know exactly where he is. Fact is he had a little accident . . . zipped up in a bit of a hurry. He’s in Victoria Hospital.’
‘Let me get this straight, Baxter. Draper is about to meet Wayne Cutler and hand over the briefcase. After a three-month operation, we’re about to tie the Cutlers to George Panaides’s murder and you watch some tuppenny ha’penny tea leaf waltz off with the evidence while Draper’s eyeing up some bloke’s todger?’
‘That’s about the size of it.’
‘Are you trying to be funny, Baxter?’
‘We didn’t want to blow our cover, sir.’
Perks took a deep breath. He seriously needed that quirk. A decent amphetamine habit, say.
‘This bloke that Draper was trying to pick up, you did work out that he might have been in on the briefcase snatch?’
‘We didn’t actually work that out, no, sir.’
‘Right.’
‘He sort of melted away in the melee.’
‘Melee?’
‘It means a confused fight or a scuffle—’
‘I know what it means, Baxter.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And Cutler never showed?’
‘Oh yeah, he showed.’
‘That’s something. You get pictures?’
‘Well, no. Actually it was him who got whacked in the face with the briefcase.’
Better make that a crack habit, Perks decided. A serious one.
‘He’s on his way to the Vic as well,’ Baxter said. ‘Concussion and a suspected broken collar bone.’
Perks recognised the laughter in the background now. DC Stuart Knight. He’d have the jumped-up little tit for breakfast. He stood and wedged the phone between ear and shoulder as he struggled to put on his coat.
‘Nobody move, I’m coming in. And tell Knight to start ironing his uniform.’
‘We’ve got Draper, sir!’
‘Got him, how exactly?’
‘Well, we know where he is, at least.’
Perks was gobsmacked at the note of triumph in the DS’s voice. ‘And what do you propose to hold him on, Baxter? Indecent exposure?’
‘It’s a thought, sir.’
‘He was in a public toilet, you idiot.’
Perks’s growl rendered the entire saloon bar silent. He couldn’t be arsed with more apologetic shrugging because he had work to do. He had to find the poor bugger who’d stolen that briefcase before Wayne Cutler did.
Within half an hour they were back at Slack’s place. Bagnall sat slurping Fanta as Slack set about the briefcase with a rusty screwdriver.
‘I have to say, Andy, that was cracking. You did really well, mate.’
The Man wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t know. The Mechanic shrugged and took another hit of bourbon. He knew he was the best.
‘Oh . . . cheers, Keith. I didn’t actually do anything, really. I was just a bit nervous, you know, so I went for a wazz and this bloke just came up and started talking to me. He was dead friendly.’
Slack smirked at him. ‘Probably your shirt, mate.’
Bagnall smiled. He’d known the shirt was a good idea. Then he got it. ‘I don’t think I like your insinuations there, Keith—’
And the briefcase flew open.
He’d seen dough before. Lots of it. And it always looked great. It looked like freedom. It looked like—
‘Jesus H. Christ on a bike, Keith!’
There were rings; four massive signet rings. Two gold sovereigns, one that looked like it had a ruby set into it and a huge square one embossed with the letters GP. But it wasn’t so much the rings that caught Andy Bagnall’s attention, as the fact that they were still in place on the waxy, swollen fingers of two neatly severed hands.
STEP ONE
SAMBAS & SAUSAGES
ONE
If it looked – to the casual observer – as though Detective Sergeant Declan Miller’s mind was not on his job, that was almost certainly because it wasn’t. Miller had a butterfly mind (if you were being generous) or was just easily distracted (if you weren’t, which meant you had the misfortune to be working with him). In an interview room, while a colleague pressed a suspect hard in search of a confession, Miller might well be wondering why one or other of his pet rats (Fred and Ginger) was looking a bit peaky, or weighing up the various merits of assorted crisp flavours before deciding that pork scratchings were the superior snack anyway. On the witness stand in court, as he solemnly swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, he could easily be trying to remember the names of the actors in The Magnificent Seven or thinking through the tricky steps at the climax of a Viennese waltz (speed and rotation could still trip him up).
Or trying to decide which was the best fish.
Or what it would be like to wrestle a chimp.
Or why those idiots who couldn’t find San José or Amarillo didn’t just buy maps.
Right that minute, waiting for the inappropriately named Goody brothers to emerge in handcuffs from a two-up-two-down he couldn’t imagine generating much excitement on Homes Under the Hammer, Miller was thinking about how much Adolf Hitler had loved Blackpool.
Miller’s partner – DS Sara Xiu – wandered across to join him and they stared at the house. It boasted a garden that would have given Monty Don the heebie-jeebies, several boarded-up windows, and a front door which had been somewhat forcefully ‘distressed’ by a metal battering ram half an hour earlier.
‘I like what they’ve done to the place,’ Xiu said. She looked to Miller, waiting for a reaction. It was about as close as she was willing to get to a pithy remark; to the use of pith in any context. As someone she could imagine making a similar remark himself, she was sure Miller would appreciate it, but he didn’t appear to. She shrugged, said, ‘Suit yourself.’
Miller turned to her. ‘Here’s something I bet you didn’t know.’
Xiu steeled herself. She was, by now, well used to Miller’s tangential observations or the inexplicable delight he took in passing on information neither she nor anyone else needed to know.
‘Blackpool was a legitimate military target during the Second World War,’ Miller said. ‘It was right up there.’
