A Dish Best Served Cold?, page 15
‘A very nice gesture, Son, and good for her morale. Now, I’ve spoken to my sister and she is more than happy for you to go around and watch The Den from her front room. The one thing she insists is that you come in through the back garden. I’m guessing that’s what you had planned anyway. The houses are back to back with Blue Street, and there’s an alleyway separating the back gardens, so it should be easy enough for you to get into hers. She’s made sure the back gate is unlocked.’
Sonny thanked Arthur and was about to hang up, but he could sense that there was something else he wanted to say.
‘Whatever you have planned for that murderous bastard, and all who stand with him, you have my family’s blessing and a lot of other families as well. We wish you well, Son. Be safe.’
Sonny was grateful to hear those words, and the feeling grew inside him that what he was going to do was justified.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The Den
Sonny made his way to Rose Street through the darkness, sticking to the shadows and back alleys whenever possible. He had taken a good look at the map before he had left the hideout and had counted the number of houses until he was a hundred percent positive that he was going through the correct and unlocked gate.
Once he had shut and locked the gate behind him, he moved into the darkness beside a small garden shed and studied the rear of the house, and the neighbouring houses either side. Arthur’s sister, Hazel, sat in an armchair watching television, oblivious to Sonny’s presence in her garden. The light was on in the living room, so there was no way she could see him. Satisfied, he made his way up the path and tapped lightly on the back door.
Hazel answered the door quickly and ushered him inside with an urgent wave. She was white-haired and had a kind face. She looked a lot older than Arthur.
‘No need to explain your reasons, my boy. Arty has told me all I need to know.’
She made her way through the kitchen to the front room door. Sonny followed behind, unzipping his bomber jacket in the warm house. ‘You are here to help, aren’t you?’ asked Hazel.
Sonny nodded.
‘It was bad enough with the smell of greasy food wafting over here when Sybil was running the café, but now her boy, Anthony, and his mates have been using it for… erm, whatever! Well, all the neighbours are fed up. Mr Davies from a couple of doors down went across to complain about the noise and they broke his nose, poor man, and the police wouldn’t do anything.’
Before Hazel opened the door to the front room Sonny asked if it was OK to turn out the hallway light. To her credit, the old lady tapped her nose in understanding, and flicked the switch into darkness.
They entered the room, closed the door and stood near the window. The Den was in darkness, directly across the street. The windows had been painted black and it looked like they were also boarded up from the inside. A small dark porch covered the entrance. It was obviously unoccupied and unused. This was confirmed by Hazel.
‘Would you like a cup of tea or anything, dear?’ Hazel asked.
‘I’m OK, thank you, Hazel. I’ve brought some water. Never got the taste for tea. Thank you anyway.’ He smiled at the old lady.
‘OK, I’ll leave you to it then, my love. My soap’s about to start. I love my soaps. I usually go to bed around nine thirty. Don’t worry about moving around. I won’t hear a thing.’
That’s good news, thought Sonny. He would be letting himself out later to familiarise himself with The Den. He didn’t want Hazel to worry if there wasn’t any need.
‘I must say, I shall sleep even more soundly tonight knowing there is a big strong man keeping guard downstairs. I shan’t disturb you from your observations again tonight, so I bid you goodnight, and shall see you in the morning for breakfast.’
Hazel made her way to the door and shut it quietly behind her, as if not to disturb anybody, leaving Sonny in the darkness.
Sonny grabbed a chair near the window and sat down for the long haul. He chose a dining chair instead of an armchair. The armchair looked far more comfortable, but he wanted to avoid the danger of falling asleep, at least for a few hours.
Nothing happened until about two hours in. Anthony Rigdon pulled up at around 10.00pm in a Land Rover with Ian Pyle, another one of Byron’s crew. They both got out and pulled a case of beer each from the rear seats. They were laughing and joking as Anthony opened the door to the café. No lights went on after they went in, and they left less than a minute later. Sonny concluded that the card game was on for tomorrow and they were dropping off the drinks.
Sonny left it for another hour, and then thought that he wouldn’t get a better time to look inside The Den. The pubs would be chucking out in thirty minutes, so he didn’t have long.
He pulled on his beanie and left the house silently by the back door. He moved slowly up the side of the semi-detached house and, after checking the street was empty, moved swiftly across the street, into the alleyway on the opposite side of the road. Hopefully there will be a back door, he thought. He crept around the back, but the door had been heavily nailed shut and the window had been fortified with thick steel bars.
He moved silently down the side of the building to the front of The Den, right next to the porch. Swiftly, he looked at the lock and selected the picks that he would need to open the door. His adrenalin pumped hard through his body. He couldn’t decide whether he was excited or scared. Or both.
After about thirty seconds he was sure that he had released the lock, but the door wouldn’t open. Then, he realised that a handle had to be levered at the same time as the key was turned. He managed a smile at the schoolboy error, before he opened the door and disappeared inside, closing the door tight behind him.
It was pitch dark inside due to the blacked out and boarded up windows. He switched on the torch. He figured the torchlight couldn’t be seen from outside, but just in case, kept the torch on a low light and the beam pointed at the floor.
The floor area of the café itself was a decent size. Three stacks of tables and chairs stood against the boarded-up windows. A pub size pool table was standing in the centre of the room, with two cues and two cases of lager on the baize. A large round table, with a couple of decks of cards on top, was close by. A large grubby settee and armchair against the wall was there to provide more seating, and a pretty good colour television was mounted on the wall opposite. An old dart board was also fixed to one wall with six darts stuck in it, and half decent music system with tapes sat on a café table near the entrance to the kitchen. This was the room that Sonny wanted to get a good look at. He mentally recorded how far ajar the door was open. He had to make sure the place was left exactly as he found it.
The kitchen was remarkably well kept. He put that down to Sybil Rigdon. After all, this had been her café for years, and she had been known for being quite fussy about keeping the hygiene standards high.
There were two gas cookers as opposed to a range, a large sink and drainer, a very large fridge with nothing but a couple of bottles of Coca-Cola and lemonade in, and an empty freezer. Shelving units held a variety of plates, bowls, cups and mugs.
There was no large pot of curry or any food at all in the kitchen. Sonny reasoned that if the card game was on for tomorrow night the food should arrive sometime during the day. It meant that he would have to sit at the window in Hazel’s house until it arrived. It was going to be a long day.
Just at the moment that he had seen enough to satisfy his plan, the unmistakable sound of a diesel Land Rover pulled up sharply right outside The Den.
Sonny quickly switched off the torch and shoved it in the inside pocket of his bomber jacket. He put the kitchen door into the position it was when he came in. There was no way to get outside from the kitchen, and no time to try and find somewhere to hide in the large sparsely furnished area. He took the double-edged stiletto commando knife out of the bag. He would have to fight his way out of this fix if anyone came through that door.
The front door opened and Anthony Rigdon strode in, flicking the light on to the large room, with Ian Pyle close behind. He placed the four bottles of Southern Comfort and Smirnoff Vodka onto the pool table alongside the two cases of beer.
Anthony rubbed his hands together. ‘I tell you what. It’s getting fucking cold out there now, you know.’
‘Tell me about it. And I forgot my coat,’ Ian agreed, shrugging his shoulders a few times. Anthony stamped home Wednesday’s arrangements.
‘Right, my mam will bring the curry round tomorrow afternoon about two, and she’ll put it on the hob to stew. Bloody lovely.’
Ian took a pool ball from one of the pockets and made a feeble attempt to bounce it off a cushion into another pocket. ‘Johnny, Terry, Sam, oh and Barry are all up for it. Michael said he’d try to make it as well, as long as Byron doesn’t want him doing something else.’ He looked away from the pool table at his friend.
‘He reckons Byron’s losing the fucking plot with all this Sonny Wilton shit. Coked up all day lately, he says.’ Anthony looked down at the floor and then back up.
He had to admit that Byron was scaring everyone these last few weeks.
‘What can I say, mate, we all saw the pound signs. We all jumped in. It’ll work itself out one way or the other. It’ll have to because if it’s got anything to do with Byron, there’s no getting out.’
‘Aye, I know. Terry wants to win back some of that fifty quid you took off him last time he was here,’ Ian said, not looking at Anthony, having another attempt at the pool ball trick instead.
Anthony guffawed loudly. ‘Aye, and I’ll take another fifty quid off him while he’s trying. Make sure you tell him to get six bags of chips on his way past tomorrow, and make sure they’re fucking fresh. Come on, let’s go. I’m fucking knackered.’
Ian stepped out into the street first, and after flicking the light off and, checking that he had his keys with him, Anthony pulled the door of The Den shut, and rattled it a couple of times to make sure it was locked. They both got into the Land Rover still giving the banter and took off into the night.
Sonny put the commando knife safely away and took a deep breath. This was all crucial information!
Checking his watch at just after midnight, he left The Den and retraced the steps he had taken an hour earlier. When he got back to Hazel’s he locked the back door and quietly slipped back into the parlour. There was nothing more he could do, so he thought it best to take the opportunity of comfort, warmth and relative safety, and swapped the dining chair for the armchair, still positioning it to so he could see across to The Den, but he was going to get some well-earned sleep. He set his mental alarm clock for 6.00am.
It was raining heavily when he woke. He hoped that the rain would continue to fall all day. It would mean fewer people on the street in broad daylight. He would, however, have to make sure he took a towel to wipe away any wet footprints in The Den.
While he was swilling his face in the kitchen sink he could hear Hazel upstairs doing her morning rituals. She came down into the kitchen already dressed and smiled warmly at him.
‘I don’t want to know the details, but I hope your night in the parlour wasn’t completely fruitless.’
She opened a kitchen cupboard and pulled out a large frying pan.
‘I slept the sleep of the dead knowing that I had my personal security guard downstairs, so as a thank you, I am going to cook you a large breakfast. No arguments, take yourself back to your post and I shall bring it through to you when it’s done.’
And she ushered him out of her kitchen.
Sonny went back into the front room and couldn’t help but feel the irony that he was about to tuck into a full breakfast, when his intentions for that same evening also concerned a hearty meal. He swapped his seating arrangement back to the dining chair and carried on watching the front of The Den.
He wolfed down a huge cooked breakfast. He got the impression that Hazel was quite enjoying the goings on in her quiet little house, and that she was quite grateful for the company. She also informed him that she would be out of the house until around 5.00pm visiting, and gave him a key to the back door.
At just after 2.00pm the rain was still falling steadily as a Ford Fiesta pulled up outside The Den. A small, round woman wearing a headscarf, got out and ran quickly into the porch and opened the door wide. She then rushed back out to the car, opened up the tailgate and lifted out a very large and very full saucepan. The woman hastily carried it through the door and pushed the door shut with her backside.
Sybil Rigden carried the heavy saucepan containing the very tasty and still quite warm chicken and vegetable curry through to the kitchen. She placed it on top of one of the cookers. After taking off her headscarf, she took the plates from the shelves and stacked them on the worktop. From the drawers she removed the cutlery she needed and a serving spoon. She was very fussy about the order of her kitchen. She could never abide her lummox of a husband, or her kids, rummaging around the cupboards and drawers looking for things and untidying everything. So, she always made sure that everything needed was out on the worktop in plain sight.
She never bothered with beer glasses because her Anthony usually drank straight from the can. However, she did put out a dozen short glasses for the four large bottles of spirits that she noticed when she came in.
After lighting the gas hob and, turning it down to one, she gave the curry a good stir and rested the spoon on the drainer. She scribbled a note to ‘switch off the gas ring’ and sellotaped it to the eye level grill. She then made two trips to the pool table, each time carrying a case of beer. Busting open the cases, she stacked them up in the fridge.
Finally, she left the kitchen, leaving the door wide open, so the smell of her curry wafted through into the large room as it simmered. She took the bottles from the pool table and placed them in the middle of the round card table, and switched on the fan heater in the corner. While tying her headscarf back on, Sybil did a quick mental check that everything had been done. Anthony, and his mates, all chipped in a tidy lump for her to cook something up for them on Wednesday nights and, to be honest, she quite enjoyed doing it since she’d stopped running the café.
Satisfied that all was in order, she hurried out in the rain and got in her car. It was 2.45pm. She had some shopping to do before cooking her old man his tea. Then it was bingo with the girls for 7.00pm.
*
Sonny watched the woman drive away and, after waiting another thirty minutes, decided it was now or never. He checked his bag to make sure that he had everything he needed, and left the house exactly the same way he had the night before. The rain had eased off to a drizzle. This time, when he reached the alleyway across the other side of the road, he followed it right to the end and into Rose Street, about eight doors away from The Den. He walked down the street as calmly and nonchalantly as he could, until he reached the porch. A man was miserably walking his dog in the rain, but he didn’t pay any attention to Sonny.
He quickly dived into the porch with the lock pick already in his hand, and was through the door and inside the building in seconds. As soon as he had shut the door, he pulled out an old towel. It looked like it hadn’t been used for years. He had acquired it from the bottom of a huge pile in the back of Hazel’s airing cupboard, and figured that she wouldn’t even notice that it had gone. He threw it on the floor and stamped his boots dry the best he could.
The smell of the simmering curry from the kitchen had permeated the large room. Already familiar with the layout Sonny made his way straight to the kitchen.
The saucepan was simmering with enough curry to feed a dozen men, never mind six or seven. Out of his kit bag Sonny pulled out a smaller cloth bag containing approximately two hundred grams of death cap toadstools (Amanita phalloides). He remembered the warnings Patch had given him about them when he was getting his foraging lesson. He had collected a lot of them over the last few months, but when he had dried the moisture out they had condensed down to what he had in the bag with him now. He had studied and read about them at length, using the books that Patch had at the barn, and knew that no potency was lost when drying or freezing them.
Cruelly, they also smelt delicious when being cooked, although any aroma was going to be masked by the smell of this curry.
Sonny undid the knot on the bag. He figured that because there was a lot of curry, the whole of the bag could go in. Using the large spoon from the drainer he emptied and stirred the whole two hundred grams of deadly poisonous fungi into the saucepan.
He replaced the spoon in the exact spot that he had taken it from. If Sybil did return she wouldn’t notice anything different. He didn’t touch or do anything else. Backing out of the kitchen and heading to the door, he used the towel to wipe away any footprints that he had left. The window of the café door was frosted up and couldn’t be used to check outside. He had to take the risk of slipping out and shutting it behind him, without being seen by anyone in the street.
But once he was out of the café, a quick look up and down the road told him that the coast was clear. He turned and walked away.
Sonny wanted to change his clothes, so he decided to head back to the hideout. He would have to be quick though. Hazel got home at 5.00pm, and she could help him identify everyone at the card game. He wasn’t going to tell Hazel what was going on. The less she knew the better. It was safer that way.
Everything was how he had left it at the hideout, so after a quick look around he headed to the phone box to call Arthur. After reassuring Sonny that Rhian was in the clear and improving by the hour, the curiosity got too much for Arthur and he asked the young man what his plans were.
