Father and Son by John Barlow

body. He wonders how she’s
getting on in Manchester. He should give her a ring sometime. Why hasn’t he? He
doesn’t know.
    When he looks in the tent again, five men in white suits are
standing around a stretcher, the dead body laid awkwardly on its side. They
make room for Baron. The sodden fabric of the man’s shirt is black, burned away
in patches all down one side.
    “Let’s have a look under that shirt,” he says.
    One of the SOCOS bends down and carefully lifts the shirt, holding
the collar between gloved thumb and index finger. It comes away easily.
Underneath is a tattoo, extending right across the man’s back, from one
shoulder blade to the other. There’s some sort of image framed in a wreath, and
beneath it some writing, nothing legible.
    “Right,” Baron says, already turning to go. “Get that cleaned up and
photographed, then you can take him in. Photos to me, soon as,” he calls out as
he marches towards his car, coat blowing open in the wind.
     
    Ten minutes later they’re back in the city centre, Steele driving,
Baron holding his phone patiently. It pings as the image arrives.
    He stares at the screen for a second, and smiles.
    “Right, we’ve got him. Game on.”

Chapter Nineteen
    “John,” she says.
“I don’t want any elephants in the room.”
    “OK, let’s round up those elephants.”
    “Are you involved in anything dodgy?”
    It’s a fair question.
    “No.”
    “No more funny money? Stolen cars?”
    “Nope.”
    He had been, though. Back in the old showroom, as he stood and
watched the life drain out of his brother, he’d taken stock of his own life. University
degree, decent career, the prodigal son who’d made a success of himself… Suddenly
it felt like it had been an act, a conceit against himself, a pointless waste
of time. So he made a decision, the worst one he’d ever made.
    “Sure?”
    “Hundred per cent legit,” he says, “white sheep of the family again.”
    When he died, Joe had been working with a new supplier of counterfeit
banknotes, great quality, almost indistinguishable from the real thing. John,
confused and disorientated by the murder of his brother, took over the contract,
doubled the order. It was his first foray into serious crime, and his last.
    It wasn’t about being a criminal, though. He’d never wanted that. What
he wanted was to escape, to leave everything behind, make a fresh start. He
wanted a yacht. That had been the dream. Him and Den in the Mediterranean, living
on a 60-foot motor boat bought with dodgy money. He really had been out of his
mind.
    She takes a drink from her bottle of Grolsch. “I’ll have to take
your word for it,” she says, trying to see behind his golden eyes, a bit less of
a glint in them now, a year on, but still John .
    The scam with the fake money and the sports cars had gone wrong.
Freddy got caught up in it. John had never asked him to get involved; it was
Freddy’s own fault, and he did four months for it. As for John, he’d managed to
extricate himself from the mess in time.
    Problem was, he had then told Den the whole thing, from start to
finish. She should have turned him in. But she didn’t. She left him, left her
job, everything, and moved away.
    “Just out of interest,” she says. “The money you made illegally last
year. Still got it?”
    He shakes his head. “Blew most of it.”
    “On what?”
    “You were sitting in it ten minutes ago.”
    She stifles a laugh.
    “Nice symmetry, though,” he adds. “Most expensive Porsche I could
find. Hundred and twenty K.”
    “You’re joking!”
    He goes all serious. “It’s got torque vectoring and seven gears.
Seven! And it does nought to sixty in less time than it takes me to uncork a
bottle of wine.”
    “Now you’re giving me the horn.”
    “It’s got one of those as well, oh yes…. Whole thing was a waste
of money, of course. I hardly ever drive it. Just one mistake after another
with me.”
    There had only been one mistake, though, and