A Dictaphone sat on a balcony table overlooking the centre of London, divulging its secrets to the occupant of the table. The man in question was sat in the sun eating his breakfast, whilst taking in the information from the tape and planning his day’s activities. Suddenly the audio changed. The speech became louder, clearer and far harsher. The listener’s jolt of surprise made it clear that this interruption was not at all welcome.

“This is Jack Lane. I wanted you to hear this. I wanted you to know I’m still out there, still alive. That should be enough to keep you worried. Oh, and enjoy your breakfast.”

The tape cut off and a large fist landed heavily on the table. 

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“You made it then?”

Sat, dressed in a smart, but ruffled black suit in the middle of a busy London restaurant, Jack Lane tried his best to keep his voice from sounding nervous as his guest arrived. She was tall, slim and attractive, dressed in a knee length Chinese dress, her dark brown hair held up in a bob by hairpins. None of this mattered to Jack, however. His furtive gaze was directed either side of her, behind her and pretty much anywhere but on the woman in front of him. He was far too distracted to concentrate on any one thing. He was checking every bit of the restaurant he could see from where he was sat.

“Yes, despite the cryptic nature of your instructions.” She replied taking a seat.
“Well I couldn’t be too careful. You’re sure you weren’t followed?”

Jack was still looking everywhere, glancing here and there: a quick look over his shoulder; another towards the entrance; back to the table.

“Definitely not. Nobody knows I’m even meeting you, let alone here.”
“Good, good. Sorry. You must be Isabelle, then.”
“Yes, you said on the phone you had some information for me.”
“I do. You sound different in person.”
“Do I?” She laughed “That’s probably the phone. I always sound terrible on answer phone messages.”

Jack started tapping the fingers of his right hand on the table and fidgeting with the cutlery. Isabelle looked at him questioningly as she pulled a Dictaphone out her bag.

“I’m good.” He pre-empted. “No-smoking restaurant.”

He combined a nod towards the signs on the wall with another suspicious sweep of the room.

“Oh, right. You don’t mind this do you?”

Isabelle motioned to the Dictaphone. He shook his head and she tried to gain eye contact with him.

“You sure have got some nerves.”

He wasn’t having any of the eye contact
.

“No, I really don’t.”
“Then why are you here? Why did you ask me to meet you? When all of London is searching for you, why were you so sure that I wouldn’t come straight here with a squad of London’s finest?”
“You didn’t last time.”
“How do you know? You never showed.”

A glance to the toilets.

“Not to you, I didn’t.”
“So you were testing me. I thought you’d just got scared off.”
“Like I said: I can’t be too careful. Not at the moment anyway.”

He punctuated this statement by moving his gaze away from her eyes over her right shoulder to one of the other tables.

“So are you still confident I’m alone.”
“You couldn’t afford not to be.”

A brief look over his left shoulder.

“How do you mean?”
“Well, if your superiors ever caught wind that you were in contact with a wanted murderer, it would be out of your hands in almost as short a time as it would take them to convict me.”
“But I still wouldn’t lose anything, though, would I?”
“What about the chance to find Ronnie’s, or should I say Mark’s, real killer yourself?”
“So they’re hunting you for no reason, then.”
“Every bad deed has a scapegoat.”
“So who killed him then?”
“Who do you think?”
“English?”

Jack sat back in his chair with an emphatic silence. Isabelle, however, leant further forward.

“But I thought he was one of English’s favourites.”
“He was.”
“You and he were two of the most trusted of all his gang, near enough partners, until he was killed that is.”
“We were.”
“Yet upon finding out that he was an undercover police officer you supposedly killed him and his real family.”
“Supposedly, yes.”
“So you’re saying it was Darrel English who killed Mark and not you?”
“The man himself.”
“Come on. You know that’s worthless without the right evidence to corroborate it and you haven’t been particularly forthcoming…”

Jack sat upright again as if his chair had been electrified. He interrupted her, his voice low and menacing.

“You know I can’t do that. I’m not stupid. I’m as good as dead the moment I hand over that evidence unless I was to have certain assurances…”
“…Which you know full well I don’t have the authority to give you.”
“And that is why the evidence will stay safely hidden for the time being.”
“But you do have the evidence?”
“Indeed I do.”

Jack sat back again, appearing to relax slightly apart from his eyes darting about the room constantly. Isabelle reached across the table to pour herself a glass of water from the jug that was sat in the middle of the table. She sat back and sipped at her water looking thoughtful. She placed her glass back down on the table and regained Jack’s attention.

“So what is this evidence, then?”

Jack leant forward and became a bit more animated with his hands.

“Ah, now that, to a certain extent, I can help you with. Somewhere, let’s describe this place as safe keeping, is a large metal briefcase. In this briefcase is a collection of items: photographs, recordings, papers. These items are of great importance to both me and you because the collective value of them provides us with a story.”
“A story?”

Isabelle’s contempt was fairly obvious.

“Yes. A story and a pretty interesting one at that.”
“And the point of this story?”
“In my case I think that’s fairly obvious.”
“It clears your name.”
“Indeed, and in your case provides you with the very thing I’m supposed to have taken away from you.”
“And what would that be?”

Jack took another thorough look round the room before leaning closer to the table and speaking softly.

“The briefcase contains all of the evidence collected by Mark Howell’s undercover operation.”
“Bullshit! It was lost when he died.”
“No, not lost. Just not found. Not by you or English, anyway.”
“How do I know you’re not just making this up? How do I know you’ve got the briefcase?”
“Why would I lie to the one person who can get me out of this?”
“You might be trying to convince me that you have the bargaining chip that I would trade your freedom for. It sounds just bit too fantastic…”

In one swift movement, Jack pulled out a small book from his jacket pocket and placed it on the table in front of Isabelle. She hesitated slightly as if it were going to bite her hand if she touched it. Slowly she reached down to pick it up and opened it up. Jack tried to read her face as she flicked through the pages.

“It’s one of the journals Mark kept while undercover. He wrote diary entries every day he was with the gang chronicling his and our activities. As you can see it’s all his handwriting.”

Jack pulled out a pen from his jacket and scrawled something on his napkin.

“Look.”

Isabelle looked up from the diary.

“What?”
“I’m left-handed. I couldn’t have written that diary in that ink without smudging it so it’s not a forgery. Now do you believe me?”

Isabelle kept a stunned silence as she thumbed through the pages before eventually placing the book back on the table and sitting back slowly. She took a swig from her glass relaxed herself.

“I thought it was gone. I thought English had gotten rid of it.”
“He got rid of some of it, certainly, but the bulk of it – enough to convict him – is hidden safely away.”
“But how did you know where it was?”
“Mark told me. How do you think I got your contact number?”
“Ok, so this evidence does exist, but what does it actually prove?”

Jack produced a pack of tablets from his pocket and popped two onto the table.

“Diazepam. For the nervous condition I seem to have acquired,”
“Oh.”

He swallowed the tablets with a gulp of water and sat forward with a more serious look on his face.

“I’ll start at the beginning. Most of this is known, but never proven.

Isabelle sat back in her chair and relaxed as Jack launched into his story.

“Thirty years ago, there were two main gangs on the streets of London, two main crime lords. The first was a man named Keith Boyle who made his money through drug running and extortion. The second was Shane English, the father of our story’s hero. For years the gangs fought each other, mostly over territory and sometimes just because, but Shane English eventually engineered a truce between the two sides. His motivation: the largest cross-channel smuggling operation ever. He figured that only both gangs together could take the job. What he didn’t figure on was that Keith Boyle would turn on him as soon as the money was being shared out. Almost the whole of Shane’s gang was killed in the massacre. Only a handful escaped including his 19yr old son, Darrel, who vowed to avenge his father’s death. For 10 years Darrel quietly re-built his father’s criminal empire until he had enough strength to storm Keith Boyle’s place of residence. Caught old Keith mid coitus, so I believe. At least he went out doing something, if not someone, he loved. Obviously this left Darrel unchallenged around London. All of the smaller gangs that had formed since his father’s death fell under his control, violently or not…”

Isabelle couldn’t help but interrupt.

“But what has this got to do with Mark’s death? What’s it got to do with you?”

Jack shook his head as if coming out of a daydream.

“I’m just filling in the background for you so that you can understand all the events.”
“And this is all in the evidence?”
“No, no. Just the stuff from Mark, but anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah… …English’s dad’s death had really affected him. The one thing he couldn’t stand more than anything was betrayal and backstabbing. Anyone caught double-crossing him was treated so severely. I, myself was witness to a few tortures and I know Mark was too. I came into the picture about 7 years ago, fresh out of juvey. I had nowhere and no one to go back to, just a phone number of one of my dad’s old friends. Turns out my old man was one of English’s drinking buddies, played cards with him on occasions. So, anyway I was accepted into the gang and quickly rose through the ranks as I became more trusted. The jobs were simple, really. Most of them were a case of making someone was a bit more forthcoming with their protection money than they had been, using whatever force necessary. No killings, though. English didn’t want us bringing him any unwelcome attention and as he always said: “A dead man can’t stump up.” Eventually I was taking jobs from English himself. That’s when I met Mark - or Ronnie as he was. We ran a couple of heists together and got to know each other quickly. That we worked with each other so well has been my downfall of late. I had no idea whatsoever that Ronnie was a nark, no idea at all. I was completely shocked when it all went off…”

Isabelle broke her long silence with a chuckle.

“Not according to the warrant out for your arrest.”

Jack responded to her quip in amiable fashion.

“Well you shouldn’t believe everything you read, you know. What does it say about me?”
“I haven’t read it.”
“Oh, of course. You’re on compassionate leave aren’t you?”
“How do you know that?”
“I read newspapers, watch the news. I’m on the run. I need to know what your friends know so that I can stay just that one step ahead of them.”
“But, sill…”
“It stands to reason that the one person Mark would actually have contact with would be one person within CID running the operation. To preserve his cover, they would be the only person he would report to, the one person he would talk to.”
“That doesn’t mean it was me, though.”
“Yours was the number he had, the number he said would be able to help. He said you were the one person I could go to, the only one who knew who he was and what he was doing. Also, I read that one member of CID was taking some time out after the incident to deal with the grief. I put two and two together…”
“So it would seem.”

Isabelle went quiet. Jack continued.

“I can only assume that grief isn’t the only reason you took time out. Am I right?”
“No. Not at all.”
“I am though, aren’t I?”
“No. You’re not.”

Isabelle was becoming quite stubborn and closed off, but Jack kept pushing her.

“You were suspended, weren’t you?”
“No.”
“You were. They blamed you for Mark’s death.”
“No.”
“They made you believe it was your fault.”

Isabelle resumed her silence as Jack pressed her further, hoping for a reaction.

“They held you responsible for the death of his family. They thought you should have been able to stop them being burnt alive. His wife. His two young children. They found a charred teddy bear next to the bodies. His daughter was still holding it when she died, but you already knew that, didn’t you?
“Yes.”
“It wasn’t guilt that brought you here, though was it? You resented them, didn’t you? You thought they were wrong to suspend you.”
“They were scared of me. Probably because I’m a woman.”
“Or because of your speedy promotion.”
“What about it?”
“Well some might say that it was a little unnatural. Especially seeing as you are a woman.”
“What if they did? What’s it got to do with them?”
“Well I imagine some of them must have been a bit suspicious of you and with you running undercover operations. All of that leaves me to believe that closure isn’t the only reason you haven’t currently turned me in.”
“So you’re saying that I want to clear myself by recovering the evidence from my investigation?”
“I’m not saying that at all.”
“What are you saying, then?”

Jack leant forward, his voice dripping with menace.

“I’m saying that you want to recover the evidence for an entirely different reason.”
“What…”

Isabelle cut off as she felt the cold metal of a 9mm silencer brush past her knee.
Jack continued rather nonchalantly.

“Some might say your colleagues weren’t suspicious enough. I would be one of them. Amazing coincidence wasn’t it? Not long after you’re given control of the English investigation an undercover agent’s cover gets blown and he perishes never knowing who gave him up. Like I said, I was shocked when it all went off. After a while, it all made sense to me about Ronnie being CID. It was just the loose end of who gave him up. There was no one I could think of. For a while I didn’t have chance to worry about it. English lost his trust in me as Ronnie’s best friend and decided he’d kill two birds with one stone by framing me for the murder of him and his family. Unfortunately he didn’t take into account the fact that Mark actually filmed his own death. Yes, that’s in the briefcase as well."
“How did you get the briefcase?”
“Funny thing, actually. In light of my framing and his own imminent death, Mark begged me to contact you and get the evidence to you. He said it would save the both of us. The problem being that he was the only one who didn’t know how disastrous that would have been."
“So if you knew about me, why did you come here tonight?”
“I didn’t. It wasn’t until I met you I put it all together. If you weren’t working for English, you would be at least a little affected by Mark’s death. Not you, though. You gave him up and you don’t care either. You gave him up and the only reason you haven’t thrown me to the wolves of CID so far is that English knows that somewhere out there is a cast iron case against him. He knows that and he needs you to gain my confidence to get it back.”
“And obviously I’ve failed. What do you plan to do with the evidence? You’re still being hunted.”
“Not for long. I’ve only got to stay hidden for another few days. Just until Mark’s funeral.”
“Why his funeral?”
“Let’s just say the evidence has been planted.”

Isabelle’s eyes widened.

“Where?”
“In a very safe place. The briefcase containing all of the evidence against Darrel English is now protected by the state as part of Mark’s will. One of your lucky colleagues will inherit English’s captivity.”

Isabelle made a sudden movement as if to jump at Jack but didn’t get far before the force of a bullet in her stomach threw her back into her chair. Almost immediately she began to slump. Jack got up and put his jacket on then reached over to pick Isabelle’s Dictaphone off the table.

“I’ll take that. You might have enough blood left in you to make it to English and get him to take out the entirety of CID to smother that evidence. Then again, you might not.”

Jack left the restaurant, walked briskly across the road and stopped in an alleyway. He took the Dictaphone out of his pocket and pressed record.

“This is Jack Lane. I wanted you to hear this. I wanted you to know I’m still out there, still alive. That should be enough to keep you worried. Oh, and enjoy your breakfast.”