For Your Own Protection(69)

‘But I don’t understand. If Samson won, cleared you out, then why are they still looking for James?’

‘This is where it started to go badly wrong. We tried to hit back at him. And we made a massive error of judgement. We should have walked away, but we thought we could take him on.’

‘How d’you mean?’

Sean hesitated. ‘Our relationship with Samson. It went deeper than the casino.’

‘In what way?’

‘He supplied us with food, drinks, women. He also supplied drugs.’

‘In the club?’

‘One of our guys was caught snorting coke in the toilets. Then Samson approached us, and offered to supply.’

‘So he supplied you with cocaine?’

‘Among other things, yes.’

‘For when you were in the club.’

‘It started off that way, but after a short time he made us an offer. Wanted to see whether there was a wider market for supplying within UGT. He asked if we’d be interested in being middlemen between him and the workforce there.’

‘“We” being?’

‘Me, James, a few of the other regulars.’

‘Bloody hell, Sean.’

‘I know, I know. It was a stupid thing to get involved with. But, hell, you know how rife drug use is within UGT. I thought, well, I might as well—’

‘Be profiting from it?’

‘Yes,’ Sean said, unblinking. ‘If it wasn’t me, it would be someone else. Then, after the robbery, we tried to think about how we could get Samson back. We thought about going to the police, telling them he’d admitted his guilt, but we decided it would have been a waste of time.’

And you didn’t want the police poking around, in case they discovered your drug sideline, Matt thought.

‘So we thought of another way we could get some compensation.’

‘You siphoned off the profits from the drugs.’ Matt was beginning to understand now. It was all starting to make sense.

‘We realised there was a more profitable technique we could employ. We made the drugs go that bit further.’

‘You cut them?’

‘Yes.’

‘With what?’

‘Various things. It worked like a dream. We were doubling the quantity and our profits were skyrocketing . . . What?’ he said, seeing the look on Matt’s face.

‘You sound like a drug dealer,’ Matt said. ‘You might have started all this to get revenge on Nick Samson, but all the talk about profit – it became something different, didn’t it?’

Sean frowned as he processed the words. And then he did something Matt hadn’t expected – he smiled. ‘Yes, I suppose it did.’

Matt shook his head. ‘Sean, you have to stop this.’

The smile vanished. ‘It is stopped. Samson found out what we were doing.’

‘And then what?’

Sean was unblinking. ‘Things got really bad.’

‘Alex McKenzie?’

‘Alex was one of our group.’

‘So his death – it wasn’t an accident?’

‘I don’t think so. Although I can’t be sure.’

Matt couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. ‘And what about his girlfriend, Rachel Martin?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

‘This is just crazy.’

‘I never wanted to put any of you in harm’s way, believe me.’

‘But I don’t understand. Why would you think Charlie was at risk? Why would Samson go after him?’

‘Because of this,’ Sean said, moving across to the bookcase. He pulled out a photograph from in between two books and handed it to Matt.

Matt gazed at the image.

‘It was the day we all went to the farm park,’ Sean said. ‘I took Charlie on the castle climbing frame.’

Sean was holding Charlie high in the air, Charlie’s mouth open in joy.

‘Turn over the photo,’ Sean directed.

‘What the hell?’

The handwritten line read:

Don’t let Charlie down, Uncle Sean.

Matt felt sick to the stomach.

‘It came in the post,’ Sean explained. ‘Just over two months ago. I panicked. Didn’t know what to do. I told James, but he said it just made it all the more important to deny everything. But then I remembered one of the girls from work talking about her friend who had paid to have this woman entrap their man. I got the contact details, wondered whether she could help. I asked her to follow Charlie wherever he went, including when he was with you. I couldn’t go to the police.’

‘You could have gone.’

‘Yes, I could have gone, but . . .’

‘You could have told me. If you thought Charlie was in danger, you should have told me.’

‘I didn’t want to drag you into this situation.’

Matt was enraged. ‘Didn’t want to drag me into the situation?’

‘I know, I know, I should have told you.’

‘Does Beth know?’

‘God, no,’ Sean said.

‘What does Samson want from you?’

‘His money back. The additional profits from the drugs we cut. And any drug supplies we have left.’