Crooks - A London Gangsters Tale | COMPLETED

Chapter Sixteen

Edwards shouldered a path through the crowd of morbid onlookers who stood zombie-like at the perimeter of the police cordon. He ducked beneath the incident tape and approached the burnt-out car. It was now blackened away to nothing, and an unanticipated spatter of drizzle had extinguished the last semblance of the blaze. Much as he resented the presence of the bystanders, he could not bring himself to blame them. It was a gruesome sight alright. Enough to beguile even the most incurious soul. Two corpses, their outlines clearly visible in the ruined car; the driver, and his passenger in the back seat. The passenger was missing a large chunk of his skull, which, if the report Edwards had received was accurate, had been blasted away to nothing by a runaway bullet.

"Witnesses?" he demanded.

"Oh plenty," a uniformed constable informed him. "Unfortunately none of them saw anything." This was the kind of gibberish constables came out with all the time. But it made a kind of sense when you thought about it. The incident had taken place in public, but it had been a highly confusing set of circumstances. It had all happened so quickly. Any eyewitnesses would be utterly useless in a court of law.

Of course, Edwards knew all too well that there was not a chance in hell of anything related to this incident ever being presented in court. He recognised the car, even in its ruined state.

He had come straight from Gatwick, where he had just finished making a tit of himself after that dodgy tip-off from Carter. For the first time, David Carter had let him down. It was embarrassing, but he could forgive it because after all he'd had a pretty high success rate lately. Edwards wasn't a stupid man, in spite of appearances – he knew the tip-offs he got from Carter were designed to distract from the real shipments that were being brought into the country. Edwards would have bet that if he could be bothered to check up on all his recent busts that each had coincided perfectly with the arrival of a new Mile End player from overseas. But Edwards was a capitalist at heart, and Carter was paying him to look the other way.

Approaching the ruined car, gently inhaling the aroma of charred flesh, he peered in at the dead man in the back seat. So that was Enrico Brigante. And the driver was obviously one of Carter's men. No doubt forensics would find traces of a shipment concealed in the car itself – likely a large one. Heroin, cocaine, whatever. Whoever was responsible for this, they were not interested in the merchandise. This was more about making a statement. Edwards would not have wanted to be in David Carter's shoes that day.

"No registration number?" Edwards asked. He was just going through the motions. He knew that an anonymous Range Rover had been seen in pursuit of this vehicle, and that its registration plates had been removed or disguised somehow. This was a gangland killing, pure and simple. And for the first time in a very long time, Edwards was ahead of the game. He knew more than David Carter wanted him to know. He was in a position to turn the situation to his advantage.

"I'm guessing that's Brigante in the back seat," he observed to no one in particular.

"Right, sir," said the constable. "And the driver's Rob Linley."

"Linley? Well, well." Edwards had met Linley a couple of times at Mile End events. Once or twice he had managed to bag himself tickets to charity galas, that sort of thing, as a reward for his loyalty to David Carter. And on those occasions, Rob Linley had been there to shake his hand and make all the right noises. He was Max Linley's son, and therefore right at the heart of the organisation. Last Edwards had heard, Rob was being groomed for CEO. Well, not anymore. This attack – whoever was responsible – was tantamount to a declaration of war.

Edwards took his mobile phone from the pocket of his overcoat and found Carter's contact details. He pressed the call button, but it didn't connect. David Carter was incommunicado.