Dead bodies weigh heavier than broken hearts - Part 9

Blackford quickly hid the bag behind his back as Angel stepped into the room looking flustered. Closely behind her followed Davies, equally red faced and sweating. On seeing Blackford, Davies lurched towards him menacingly, stopping dead when he noticed Hayden glaring at him from the other side of the room. Hayden had pulled a gun out and had it aimed square at the meathead’s chest. A few inches to the right and Angel would be in the firing line. The four of them stood like that for what seemed like an age, staring each other out across the room. Angel was the first to break the silence.

“What’s this about?” she said, her voice wavering unconvincingly.

Blackford motioned to the empty wall cavity with his head.

“I think you know”

Angel started to protest but then thought better of it. She swung around and slapped Davies full force in the face.

“You idiot!” She screamed.

Davies faced burned crimson red. Hayden motioned with his gun for Angel to back off and turned to Blackford:

“I think you better tell me what’s going on.”

Blackford pulled the bag of pills out from behind his back and threw them down on the floor at their feet. He looked at each face in turn, dragging the moment out for all it was worth. He spoke to Hayden first.

“You and Jenny were in business” he started, “With Jenny acting as a go between for you and her contacts in England. Am I right?

Hayden, his face drawn, hesitated for a moment then gave a nod of agreement.

Blackford continued.

“Jenny being the trustworthy type, you clearly saw no problems with giving her the cash up front, only when she didn’t show last night you thought you’d been burned -.”

Hayden grimaced, Blackford went on.

“-and you had, but not by Jen.” He looked over at Angel and licked his lips “By accident or design Angel got wind of the plan and decided to intervene.”

Angel glared at him, while the Davies started to shifted uncomfortably on his heels. Blackford felt himself starting taking a perverse enjoyment from the situation.

“For reasons personal, financial, or both, she then set in motion a plan to manipulate the situation to her own ends.”

Angel broke her silence and snarled at him:

“You can’t prove that”

Blackford turned towards her.

I’m coming to that bit.” He flicked his eyes towards Davies, a thick bead of sweat was snaking from his bald crown down past his temple. He looked back at Angel. “You couldn’t do it on your own, so you employed the help of your chemically enhanced friend. I don’t want to speculate on how you persuaded him, but having run round like Hayden’s hired ape for years, I’d say he was pretty ripe for turning by the time you got your hands on him.”

Blackford checked on Hayden, he’d fixed his former friend with a killer stare and it looked like if he gripped the gun any tighter it would shatter. The colour had drained from his face and Blackford was starting to think he may have overshot. He hoped James would get here soon but proceeded anyway.

“At a prearranged signal last night, you got Davies to make a slight adjustment on Hayden’s phone, inserting your number under Jenny’s name. This meant that whenever you texted Hayden saying the drop would be delayed by an hour, it looked like it had come from Jenny. This set the scene for the switch; Jenny would show up an hour early, only to be met by Davies claiming he was acting on behalf of Hayden and take the pills. Blackford could see the veins sticking up on Davies forehead. He addressed him directly

“Only Jenny didn’t co-operate did she? If I know her she put up a fight and something inside your steroid frazzled mind snapped.

The Meathead lunged at Blackford, shouting:

“Fucking Bitch!”

Blackford ducked the punch, sending the heavier man off balance. By the time Davies had recovered equilibrium Hayden had jabbed the gun into his ribs and was bellowing in his ear to calm down. Meanwhile, Angel tried to make a break for the door. Blackford caught her and flung her down on the bed. He could feel himself getting angrier and he spat out his next seven words,

“And you killed her where she stood.”

He composed himself a little and continued quicky,

“My guess is that you planned to threaten her into leaving Glasgow, or were going to kill her and dispose of her body some place else but your temper got the better of you. There wasn’t enough time to properly dispose of the body so you had to hide her, at least enough so that Hayden wouldn’t see when he turned up an hour later in the dark. If you had any sense you would have taken her ID to buy you some time.”

Davies grinned dementedly at him.

“That wasn’t a complement. You then came back here to tell Angel the good news - while you were away doing the heavy lifting she was packing away Jenny’s stuff in line with the “runner” story you were going to go with. She fucked up slightly when she unpacked Jenny’s belongings and made the room unnatural looking, but that’s not what turned me on to the cover up.”

Angel hissed at him from the bed, her eyes burning with contempt. Blackford continued;

“Knowing it wouldn’t be long before the body was identified and questions started getting asked, you decided to put me in the frame. When you came over to my house early this morning you were able to do two things; find out how much I remembered from last night and steal my black jumper. The first was not much, and my guess is that my jumper is now either lying somewhere close to the scene, or already in a police evidence bag. I have to admit it was good, even I thought I’d done it for a while back there!”

Blackford stopped to draw breath and survey the effect the words were having on his listeners. He continued

“Only the plan hit a small snag when I told you what I knew about the Hayden deal. You thought that if I started following that trail it would eventually lead back to you, so you had to make sure I was kept in the dark. First, when you sent Davies around here right after I phoned you to keep me from finding something I shouldn’t, and then again more permanently less than an hour ago at the Tunnel Party when you tried to have me bumped off. My body could have lain down there for years undiscovered.”

Angel spoke.

“That’s a nice story Blackford, but you know you can’t prove any of it.”

“Oh yeah?” Blackford sneered, “Mobile phones, photos and a great big bag of drugs says I can.”

Angel laughed, “What drugs?” Hers eyes flicked behind him, Blackford followed her sight and found himself looking the wrong way down the barrel of Hayden’s pistol.

“Sorry Blackford” Hayden said “I can’t afford to get dragged into this mess, give me the pills.”

Blackford stared at Hayden and then reluctantly bent down and handed him up the bag. The Dealer shoved it in his bag. He took the gun off Blackford and poked it in the Meathead’s back.

“Walk,” he commanded “This isn’t over for you.”

The two left the house. Angel turned to Blackford with an ugly sneer.

“This is still on you Blackford. My hands are clean.”

A gun shot rang out in the night.