Revenge

frames. He was a little younger than the others.
“You’re job’s intelligence,” the Chief came back quickly. “Someone must know something. Squeeze every frigging contact we have.” Then he shouted at the top of his voice, “Will you shut the young one up. I’m trying to have a fucking meeting in here.”
There was no immediate end to the baby’s crying but the sound receded and then the front door could be heard closing with a loud bang, after which there was silence in the house.
The man responsible for intelligence broke the silence. “They may well have jumped ship to the Real boys. They’ve been working hard recently trying to convince a few of the younger or wilder sorts to join them.”
“We are the fucking real boys,” the Chief shot back with venom. “That vermin calling themselves the Real IRA is just taking the piss. And even they aren’t stupid enough to try and kidnap Melanie Adams. It makes no fucking sense.”
There was again silence broken only by the Chief noisily slurping on his coffee. “Get Connor on the case,” he continued. “Do whatever it takes to shut Murphy up and get ready for the shit to hit the fan when the press gets their hands on this. We need to distance ourselves from Maguire. And remind our boys that if we hear of anyone talking to the competition, they’ll be spending the rest of their lives in a wheelchair and taking their meals in liquid form through a straw.”
It was just after four in the morning before Tom made it home. By no means a castle, but it felt reassuring to be back and shut the front door on the rest of the world. A world that now seemed a lot more dangerous than it had when he last left the house. He had lived in the same three bedroom detached house close to the racecourse, looking down over the town of Brighton, for twelve years. The location next to the racecourse had nothing to do with his gambling way of life. It was simply a more affordable area to live but it did seem appropriate and it was fun in summer to be able to attend an evening meeting and stagger home after a few too many beers. The outside of the house was nondescript but over the years, and with the help of poker tournament winnings, he had radically changed the interior. He had found a Polish builder who worked hard for a very fair hourly rate and used him to knock down walls, to extend the size of the kitchen and the living room. The result was a modern bright home that often surprised visitors with its spaciousness and style.
Tom loved living in Brighton. He thought of it as a mini London on sea but unlike the Capital everything is squeezed into a small area. He enjoyed the vibrancy and creativity that was evident all through the year. There was never a shortage of things to do. He particularly liked the large choice of live music venues and the comedy clubs. And of course he was a regular at the Casinos.
In the summer there would be a variety of Festivals that fought for his attention. What he liked best though was the cosmopolitan nature of Brighton. It is the Gay capital of the UK and a huge tourist destination, whether for hen and stag parties at the weekend or for family holidays in the summer. Diversity is welcome and expected by the inhabitants. He doubted he would ever live anywhere else.
Earlier, he’d sat in the back of a police car while ambulances and further police cars arrived, all with flashing lights and sirens blaring. Soon the scene was flooded with a mixture of uniformed and plain clothes officers. He could see Melanie Adams sat in the back of a different car. He watched them all going about their business, then after a while one of the senior uniformed officers approached and spoke to him through the open car door. When the officer said would he mind going back to the police station, to help further with their enquiries and make a statement, he wasn’t entirely sure if he had the option of refusing but in any event would have chosen to go and get it out the way.
He’d already refused the offer to go to hospital, pointing out that there would be no permanent damage, just severe bruising to his forehead and knee. He’d dismissed the idea he might have concussion and convinced them he would be perfectly capable of providing a lucid description of the night’s events, especially while everything was fresh in his mind.
Once at the police station, he was sat at a metal table in a sparse room and kept waiting twenty minutes, although in the meantime he was offered and accepted a hot mug of tea, which was delivered by a perfectly friendly female officer in uniform. Finally, two interviewing male officers in plain clothes patiently went over virtually Tom’s complete life history, before honing in on the evening’s events. They questioned his every detail and then cleverly would ask the same questions in a different way a short time later to check his answers. He recognized what they were doing and trying to spot their traps kept him alert and helped fight the monotony of the protracted questioning.
Tom recognized the double questioning was not specifically an indication they didn’t believe him but a professional need to be one hundred per cent accurate. The media were all over this case and there would be no career for anyone who made even the smallest error.
Tom had to laugh out loud when one of the officers asked how well he knew Melanie Adams! Not as well as he would like to he was thinking but such flippancy seemed out of place. The way it had been asked, there was the hint of an implication something was amiss about the night’s events and maybe he and