Chapter 6

The Plan

Denise dressed and quickly scribbled a note for Stephanie who was gently snoring away, tucked soundly in bed. She grabbed her jacket and slipped out of the room, leaving a "Do not disturb" sign on the door.

Downstairs at the front desk, the Jimmy Somerville look-alike had been replaced by someone else far less surly.

"Is there an internet café nearby?" she asked.

"It's not really near, but there's one in Sydney Street. Do you know where that is?"

"I think so. Is it just down from the station?"

"That's the kiddie. If not, I'm sure I can think of something else." he said, giving her a wink.

Denise thanked him and left taking St. James' Street, across the Old Steine to North Street. Sydney Street was at the end of one of the roads on the right.

It took about half an hour, but she made it and was surprised that even on a Sunday morning, there was still a lot of life in the town. She had visited it quite regularly as a child and whilst so much had changed, there was still so much that hadn't. Certainly, she remembered it well enough to find her way around.

Sydney Street was much quieter than the area around North Street and she scanned the row of shops, most of which were shut, for somewhere that looked like it would fit the bill.

Needless to say, it was as it just had to be, at the other end.

It took a couple of hours to find what she was looking for and cost a small fortune to print it (that's a small fortune in real terms, not comparing it to the small fortune she spent on clothes. That was a bigger small fortune).

It felt to Stephanie that Denise had been gone for hours and as soon as she heard the door open, she had flung herself at Denise and was sobbing tears of joy, hugging her tight enough to stop blood flow.

"You had me so worried." she said. "I know you left the note, but I had no idea where you'd gone or what you were going to do. Where were you anyway?"

"I went to find some things out." she simply replied.

"What things?"

"Look, shove that in your gob and shut up a minute." she said, throwing a chocolate bar to her.

"Ooh, chocolate." said Stephanie and ripped the wrapper off.

Humming a catchy refrain, Denise laid out the printed pages and showed them to Stephanie.

"See?" she said proudly.

"No. What am I looking at?"

"Old Man Smart. That's him there." she said, poking the page with her finger. "He's the one running Fellows while his dad's at his holiday home in Barbados."

"What does that prove? It doesn't tell us what's going on, does it?"

"Look closely. I had to blow that image up a bit, but I'm sure that's someone we both know."

"Fuck! That's Paul."

"That's right."

"So what does that prove?"

"It proves that they know one another. It doesn't prove anything about the drugs or the killings, but it does prove that they are not strangers."

"Drugs? Killings?" said Stephanie amazed.

Denise filled Stephanie in on her idea.

"It all made sense when you said what you said about your brother. You said he was on the mend didn't you?"

"He was. He was doing really well and then he died."

"Why?"

"The police said it was an overdose."

"It probably was, but do you think he would have gone to that much trouble trying to clean his act up and get himself together just to blow it with one more fix?"

"No."

"Neither did I." she said smiling. "Then I thought about how they were going about keeping you in check. The threat to your parents and that clinched it."

"I don't follow."

"Suppose your brother wanted out." she said slowly. "And then suppose that he was more than just a user and a petty thief, at least as far as Paul and his business was concerned. With all that Andrew knew, do you think they just have let him walk away from all that? I mean, he would have known about Paul, about Smart and that would have been another of Paul's loose ends wouldn't it?"

"It makes sense." said Stephanie looking just a trifle wan and pale.

"I know. It frightened the life out of me too."

She sketched out the rest of the idea and the more she said it, the more she got the feeling that she was on the right track.

"I couldn't fathom why I was so important to them after I was witness to a bungled attempt at a robbery. I wasn't really even a witness. I saw men in balaclavas, so I don't even know who they were. I only heard the bit about Smart. That was all.

"So I factored in the arson attempt as well and still I couldn't see that in a business as big as Smart's, it was worth chasing us all over the place. That's where your brother came in. I kind of put him into the picture too and he didn't fit unless there was something to do with drugs that linked all three of them together.

"I knew it linked your brother to Paul, but I couldn't work out whether Paul was just hired help with business of his own on the side, you know, brought in to do specific jobs and the like; the nasty bits, or whether he was part of an established team. When I saw this press release, I realised that I was probably closer to the truth than I imagined."

"And you put that together from a few snippets of information?" asked Stephanie.

"Well that and an overactive imagination, yes."

"I have to say, that's quite impressive."

"Thank you."

"I suspect that this was just what Paul was afraid of."

"The native Americans say that you can't bury something forever, as given time it will always rise to the surface to be found. Someone would have got to it in the end anyway."

"Do you think we'll be able to convince the police of this?"

"I sincerely hope so. I don't fancy ending my life just yet or winding up as a crack whore."

"Crack whore?" asked Stephanie, somewhat startled.

"More of that imagination." said Denise with aplomb.

Denise and Stephanie went to the station and the two of them boarded a train to go home.

"Don't you think it's a bit early to go home?" asked Stephanie.

"I have a hunch this will be all over soon. I think it's time to take what we know back to the police and let them deal with it."

"But Madam what's her face said not to trust the police."

"No, she said they were useless, but we can't deal with this on our own. They have the manpower to sort this out and make it right all ways round."

"I don't know. Perhaps we should stay a couple more days and wait until it all blows over."

"Look Steph. I can understand why you're nervous about going back, but we'll have to do it sooner or later. At least this way we have half a chance of getting away with our lives intact. I would imagine your parents might feel much the same way."

Neither of the girls were comfortable with going back into the lions den, whether it be sooner or later, but the train left the station and Denise felt that whatever the outcome, she wasn't prepared to keep on running, always having to look over her shoulder. It didn't seem right.

It was three hours later when they disembarked and both Stephanie and Denise were pleased that this would soon be all over.

"Good afternoon girls." said Paul.

"I had a feeling this would happen." said Denise.

"I had to. Don't you understand? He has my parents." said a once again tearful Stephanie.

Denise was grabbed roughly by both arms and pushed towards a waiting car. All the way, Stephanie was going on about her parents.

"Will you stop your bellyaching woman? You're starting to piss me off." grumbled Paul.

Stephanie sulked, but meanwhile, Denise sat quietly in the back between two goons, neither of whom she would like to have met in an alley in broad daylight, let alone a dark one.

Soon, the car pulled up outside a warehouse on the outskirts of town.

Denise was pushed in first, accompanied by the two goons. They were followed in by Paul and then there was a loud 'clack' as Paul switched on the power and several strip lights blinked into life.

The warehouse was huge and they made their way past stacked boxes, pallets of this and that and large machines to what looked like a small office at the rear.

"Mum, dad!" shouted Stephanie and ran to her parents, asking after them and telling them how she and Denise had been in Brighton.

"ENOUGH!" snarled Paul. "So!" he continued, turning to Denise. "You thought you could run did you?"

"It seemed preferable to being silenced."

"I can see where you get that idea, but at the end of the day, you're going to be silenced anyway. I don't like loose ends."

"Is that what you did with Steph's brother Andrew?"

"You see, that's where you all seem to think I'm just stupid and can't see when people are trying to outsmart me. He tried. Look where it got him! A one way ticket to the grave." he laughed a callous laugh while his cronies just stood silently, each holding one of Denise's arms.

"So I guessed right then? This is all just for a drug deal is it."

"Oh no. It wasn't just a drug deal. It was going to be the biggest of the century. Of course you put paid to that one didn't you?"

He walked across the floor and stood toe to toe with Denise.

"Have you any idea how much that cost us? HAVE YOU?"

"I presume it's in seven figures, maybe eight." she answered casually.

"Eleven — if you count those after the decimal point." he said.

"I guess it's all off now is it?"

"Oh no, you can't stop us that easily. We've got another shipment coming in tonight. You see, that's what happens when someone like me teams up with someone like Smart. He has the import licence and I have the acumen."

"It's not going to work, you know that don't you?"

"Why? Who's going to stop me?"

"I think the police may have something to do with it."

"Hah! They couldn't find their arses with a map." he snorted.

"I wouldn't be so sure." she said.

"Why? What have you done?"

"Me? What can I do?"

"Smart and I have put too much into this to fail now. Neither you nor the idiot police are going to stop this. Tie them up with the others. Smart will want to deal with this personally."

Paul and his men left them in the small office.

"What's this all about?" asked Grace, Stephanie's mother.

"Illegal drugs Mrs. Watkins. Smart has been importing it and Paul has been the distributor. Unfortunately I think Andrew may have got himself involved and was unable to get out in time."

Grace started to cry and Mr. Watkins, who looked as white as a sheet could do nothing to console her.

"See? I told you we were wrong to come back." sniffed Stephanie.

Denise said nothing. Her plan wasn't quite going according to how she'd envisaged it. Then the lights went out and Stephanie wailed as the darkness engulfed them all.

They had no idea how long they'd been sitting tied together. All any of them could tell was that it felt like days, when they heard the large doors at the entrance being opened. Voices too far away to be heard distinctly came next and then the door to the office burst open. All four of them jumped and all of them let out a loud exclamation.

No-one could see who had come in as flashlights blinded them, but they were now surrounded.

There was a faint 'clack', the overhead lights started to blink on and the four of them could see that they were surrounded by armed police.

"Put those guns down and untie them." said a man as he strode purposefully into the office. "Denise." he said and she turned to face him.

"You took your time. I didn't think you were going to come."

"We needed to get them in the act of putting the merchandise onto British soil. Sorry about that. Still, all's well that ends well eh?"

Denise was too happy that all of this had come to an end to be too upset with the policeman and before too long, they were led blinking out into the daylight, escorted by various paramedics and police officers.

"You knew!" said Stephanie. She looked shocked and very annoyed that her friend had let her believe that they were walking back into a trap.

"Of course I did. I couldn't tell you because there was too much chance that you may have let the cat out of the bag."

"When?"

"While I was out. I got the information from the internet and emailed it across to the police here. I just needed to know that there was help on its way. There was no way we would have been able to pull it off on our own and once I knew that your parents had been involved, well that just sealed it."

"You could have told me."

"No I couldn't. I needed you to be as natural as possible so as not to attract any attention. They didn't know me, but they knew you and I'm fairly certain that Paul would have known something was amiss."

It could all so easily have just ended there.

The police had got the bad guys and made a very impressive drugs bust; the hostages were freed, the answer to what had happened to Stephanie's brother was cleared up and the charges added to the growing list for Paul and Smart. What more could there be?

Well what about Denise?

... And Stephanie?

Did they get together?

It turns out that they didn't, least not to begin with.

Fellows reopened the Saturday after the robbery and everyone was surprised that Denis wasn't present. Cynthia was promoted temporarily to supervisor — something she wasn't comfortable with and apart from the workload being higher, everything went as normal.

Denise phoned them on the Monday and explained that things had happened and that Denis wasn't going to be able to make it.

"Is he sick?" they asked.

"No, he's not sick, but he's really not himself right now."