The Fatal Formula

By Malcolm Havard

Aiden Hughes is a wanted man for a murder he didn't commit and, of course, Manchester's most ruthless gangster still wants him dead.

Fresh from his confrontation with The Honey Talker, Aiden seeks a new life and anonymity in Ireland, settling into a cosy existence with girlfriend Roisin. But then an old colleague, Suzie Regen,

• Language: English
• Publisher: Northodox Press
• Release date: Oct 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781915179876

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Suzie

Wednesday, 11th February 1998

Suzie took a deep breath and hesitated before knocking on the door of room 412. She’d not seen Simon since Sam’s attack on her, and their suicide, last year. Old friends knew and that made things harder.

Better get this over with, she thought, and knocked.

‘Won’t be a moment,’ called the voice inside the room.

She smiled. The muffled voice was familiar, as was the fact he wasn’t ready. Simon’s timekeeping was never the best.

It was a good minute before the door was opened.

‘Suze! You’re a sight for sore eyes. How the devil are you?’

Simon was clearly fresh out of the shower, dressed in one of the Midland Hotel’s best towelling robes. His hug was warm and fragranced with whatever shower gel the hotel provided.

‘I’m alright, Si, how are you doing?’ Her eyes looked him up and down. ‘Actually, I can see for myself. London’s obviously suiting you; you’re looking good.’

He smiled. ‘It is. It’s the place to be in our line.’ He stepped back inside the room. ‘Sorry, come on in. I’m running late, I’m afraid... as usual. Make yourself comfortable while I put some clothes on.’

Inside, Suzie found herself not in a bedroom, but a lounge with two leather settees, a coffee table with a bowl of fruit on it and a desk, upon which sat a laptop with papers next to it.

‘A suite,’ she said. ‘I’m impressed.’

Simon grinned. ‘I’m making the most of it while I’m flavour of the month.’

‘The book still doing well?’

He nodded, coming out of the bedroom. ‘Politics, corruption and organised crime always sells.’

‘It’s good though. You did a great job. It’s very readable.’

‘I was lucky,’ he replied, then gave her that look; the one she’d seen all too often in the last nine months, and she knew what was coming. ‘And so were you, from what I heard,’ he said, more quietly. She nodded.

‘Maybe,’ she muttered.

‘Definitely,’ said Simon firmly. ‘If that doctor hadn’t been jogging by…’ He shook his head. ‘Why did she… sorry, I shouldn’t pry.’

‘That’s okay. Get some jeans on so we can go get a beer.’

‘Right. Will do.’

Simon went through the connecting door into the bedroom again. Suzie wandered over to the laptop, knowing that Simon wouldn’t mind her looking - he’d have done just the same if their positions were reversed. She nodded to herself; it was what she’d expected.

The knock on the door made her jump.

‘Room service.’ The voice was male and accented.

‘Get that would you, Suze,’ Simon called from the bedroom. ‘I haven’t had anything since breakfast, so I ordered a sandwich.’

Suzie opened the door. The white jacketed waiter looked momentarily surprised, blinking at her through his tinted, black framed glasses.

‘This Mr Nixon’s room?’ he asked, frowning.

What was that accent? Polish? German? Her thoughts couldn’t help but go back to the previous May. Surely this couldn’t be..? No, of course not. He was just a waiter.

‘Yes, he’s changing,’ Suzie pointed to the bedroom. ‘Just put it down on the table.’

The man did as he was told. As he passed, Suzie got a whiff of cigarettes; sharp, acrid, and not a brand she knew. He accepted the few pound coins that Suzie pressed into his hand, though he seemed reluctant to make eye contact with her, and left, leaving the door open behind him.

‘Hellfire, the Midland’s really going downhill,’ she muttered, shutting the door.

‘Ah, great,’ said Simon, coming out of the bedroom as he fastened his shirt buttons. ‘I’m starving.’ He grabbed one of the sandwiches and took a bite. ‘Help yourself.’ He offered her the plate. Suzie inspected them.

‘They’re chicken, Simon. I’m a veggie, remember?’

‘Oh, yeah. Sorry.’

He took another bite.

‘You’re still working on organised crime, I see,’ she nodded towards the laptop.

Simon nodded. ‘Of course.’

‘Is that why you’ve come back? To look at the Manchester ones?’

He nodded again.

‘Nothing much gets past you, does it, Suze?’ He teased. ‘God, it’s hot in here,’ he added. She kept her face impassive.

‘Is Mickey Smith on your list?’ she asked.

This clearly hit home. Simon stood and stared at her; sandwich poised halfway to his mouth. ‘How did you know?’ he replied. He rubbed his face. ‘Flaming hell, aren’t you warm? The sweat’s pouring off me.’

He did look red in the face, and perspiration was dripping from his hair, but Suzie was sure this was just from the shower.

‘I’m fine. Must be you. As to Smith, just a lucky guess,’ she said. ‘Joke. Not so lucky, actually. In this city, if something fishy is going on, Smith will be somewhere around.’ She glanced at him and frowned. ‘Si, you do look odd. Are you alright?’

‘Yeah… I must be coming down with…’

He suddenly staggered, grabbing the top of the settee for support but it wasn’t enough… He lurched forward, falling to the floor.

‘Simon!’ Suzie tried to catch him, but it was too late and he was too heavy for her; his weight dragging her over, too. He landed half on top of her. She struggled to free herself, finally managing to squirm from underneath him. Simon was convulsing, foaming at the mouth and gasping for air like a landed fish. His face was bathed in sweat and his pupils mere pinpricks.

‘Si! Simon!’ she yelled again. She scrambled to her feet, staring at him in horror. He was convulsing even more violently now, arching, and twisting his body. He needed help - and quickly.

She looked around for the phone, spotting it on a small table near the sofa. She picked up the receiver; under it were instructions to dial 1 for reception. She did, only to get an engaged tone. ‘Damn it!’ She slammed it down and before she knew it, was out in the corridor of the hotel yelling. ‘Help me!

Help me, someone; my friend’s ill! Please!’

A door opened, then another. Anxious, puzzled faces staring out at her.

‘My friend,’ she explained. ‘Please, he’s collapsed. Help him!’

A man stepped out of one of the bedrooms.

‘I’m a first aider. Where is he?’

‘Back there, room 412.’

‘Gill, call reception,’ he said to his companion. ‘Come on, show me.’

Suzie turned, then stopped, for someone was coming out of room 412. White jacket, dark glasses. The waiter! He was carrying the tray away with something else tucked under his arm. He didn’t look back at her.

‘What the..?’ The first-aider gave Suzie a puzzled look.

She didn’t wait to reply, just ran to the door.

Simon had stopped convulsing, but he’d also stopped breathing, too. His lips were blue and his pin-prick pupils stared towards his desk where his laptop sat...

Or, rather, where his laptop had sat.

CHAPTER ONE

Suzie

Wednesday, 25th March 1998

‘Who’s that?’

Suzie was jolted back from deep down the rabbit hole where her thoughts had taken her. Quickly, she minimised the screen in front of her.

‘Just a face from the past, Paul,’ she replied. ‘No-one important.’

Her assistant was frowning. ‘He looked familiar. Oh, wait, is that..?’

‘Aidan Hughes, once of this very office; and yes, it was.’ She smiled at Paul. ‘In fact, he used to sit at that very desk where you are now.’

Paul returned her smile. ‘Hopefully, I won’t follow his path. Murder, organised crime...’ He shook his head in disbelief.

‘Where do you think he is now?’

Suzie expanded her screen again and stared at Aidan’s photo for a few moments, before clicking to close the file.

‘Who knows,’ she muttered.

CHAPTER TWO

Aidan

Tuesday, 7th April 1998

‘Here you go, English.’

Liam steered the battered Transit to the side of the road.

‘Cheers, mate.’

‘Not a problem, Tommy Boy.’ He peered up through the windscreen of the van at the leaden skies. ‘Looks like the shit weather’s here to stay,’ he muttered. ‘Don’t think we’ll be pouring the footings tomorrow.’

Aidan had his hand on the door latch, ready to sprint across the street, but paused and aped Liam in looking up at the clouds; as if simply gazing at them could divine the next day’s weather better than RTE. ‘Yeah, looks like it’s set in.’ He looked across at his workmate. ‘What do you want to do? Scrub it and try again on Thursday?’

Liam pulled a face. ‘Ah, we’ll have to see, won’t we? Ah, fuck it, yeah, let’s give tomorrow the boot. Your countryman will be pissed off but, hey, let’s call it a little bit of payback for three hundred years of being English pricks.’ Liam smiled. ‘No offence, English.’

Aidan grinned. ‘None taken. Probably see you in Rosie’s, Liam.’

‘Yeah, you and that woman of yours, too. See you, Tommy.’

Aidan nodded and got out into the deluge, shutting the Transit’s door, and dashing for the shelter of the town hall doorway. He was definitely a lot fitter now; ten months of labouring had helped. He’d shed a good three stone of the bulk he’d accumulated from his ‘lazy years’ in Manchester. Living with Roisin had helped, too.

Roisin.

"That woman of yours."

Roisin most definitely didn’t belong to him. She was her own woman, a free spirit, and all the better for it. He thought he’d feel trapped by accepting her help. It was actually the reverse, it was freeing. And to think he’d been frightened of commitment.

But then, he’d always been a fool.

He checked his watch; ten past four. Roisin finished at five. One of the best bars was just opposite, but the city’s library was still open, too. The pub was tempting but he could shelter in the library just as well and catch up with the papers. It was a damned sight healthier for him as well.

Shaking his head at this sudden attack of common sense, he made a dash for the library, getting soaked again in the process.

Damn it, he’d only just managed to dry off in the van. Roisin would grumble about him smelling like a wet dog in the car all the way home. Well, it couldn’t be helped.

He managed to force a smile at the librarian and headed for the reference section where the daily newspapers were. It was becoming a path well-worn; though on Thursdays rather than Tuesdays as that was when the library was open until 8pm. Roisin worked a late shift that day so Aidan could catch up with the news from home. They’d meet up for a quick drink and a bite to eat before heading back to the cottage. They were safe in the knowledge they were unlikely to see a Garda patrol car in the twenty-odd mile drive back home, even if the police were bothered about drunk drivers; which, here, they didn’t seem to be. It became a routine; part of their lives, part of their new start.

Droplets of rain fell off Aidan like tears on the newspapers he’d selected from the rack. He smiled ruefully to himself and shook his head at the analogy he’d just created in his mind. He was never one for purple prose when he’d been a journalist. He wasn’t sure why he started to use it now. Who knew?

So, what to start with? The British papers? They always had The Times, The Guardian, and The Telegraph in the library. When they’d first settled here, that was where he’d tended to go first; it was obvious why, he was homesick, a refugee in shock and living in an alien land. Now, Eire felt like home and Manchester was ancient history.

He put the British newspapers to one side and picked up the Irish Independent. They’d missed the Sunday’s edition this week so he wanted to catch up.

Aidan started to read their leader’s words about the talks going on in Belfast between the British government, the Republican parties, and the Unionists. Then something else caught his eye. A teaser for a story on the inside pages. The peace talks forgotten; he flicked through the pages to it. ‘Shit,’ he muttered as he read it.

* * *

He was waiting for her outside her work, disregarding the deluge.

‘Love, you’re soaked, why..?’ Roisin said.

‘We’ve got a big problem,’ replied Aidan. ‘We need to get home. Now.’

CHAPTER THREE

Aidan

Tuesday, 7th April 1998 - Evening

Roisin poured them both a large glass of Paddy’s whiskey and passed one to Aidan. ‘Well, here’s to us. It was good whilst it lasted.’

Aidan clinked glasses with her but said nothing. He just looked at the page he’d torn out of the library’s copy of the Irish Independent. Although this was considered a cardinal sin by the library, he felt justified in doing it, mainly because it removed the chance of anyone else seeing the story. It was scant solace; the newspaper’s circulation was Eire’s biggest for a broadsheet. How many thousands would have seen it? How many of their neighbours? How many had looked at Aidan’s picture and wondered about that couple who had moved into the little cottage above the harbour ten months ago?

Too many for comfort.

REPORTER WANTED FOR MURDER:

PROBABLY IN REPUBLIC,

SAYS FORMER COLLEAGUE

Fugitive reporter, Aidan Hughes, is alive and probably living in Eire, according to his former work colleague, Suzie Regen.

Hughes, 33, was captured on CCTV clutching a gun and threatening witnesses when leaving the scene of a gangland murder in Manchester in May of last year. He’s not been seen since.

Although police in the city say they are keeping an open mind, reliable sources within the Force believe Hughes, caught up in a deal with the underworld, is dead - either killed by the gangsters he was dealing with or by his own hand.

His former colleague, Suzie Regen, disagrees.

‘I’m convinced Aidan is alive,’ she asserts. ‘I worked with him and know that he’s much more resourceful and clever than others have suggested. He’s much more John Stonehouse than Lord Lucan.’

Regen is referring to Britain’s two most prominent missing person cases of the last quarter of a century, and their differing fates. Whilst ‘Lucky’ Lucan, like Hughes, is wanted for murder, it is strongly believed by friends Lucan committed suicide as the honourable way out. Stonehouse, a former Labour MP, and government minister, faked his death and attempted to start a new life with his mistress in Australia.

‘Aidan clearly had hidden depths,’ Regen argues. ‘Th e fact that he’d got involved with organised crime in the city shows that. No-one who worked with him knew anything about that side of his life. He’d have found a way out if he could.’

When asked why she thought Hughes was in Eire, Regen smiled.

‘I have my sources,’ she responded. ‘I believe I know who he’s with.’ She refused to be drawn on these sources or what evidence she holds. She does have a word of warning for the fugitive reporter though.

‘If I can find these links, then others, be it the authorities or the Manchester underworld, will be able to as well. It’s hard to really disappear. Stonehouse was quickly rumbled; Aidan will be, too. His days are numbered.’

So, if you live in a remote part of the Republic of Ireland and have had a new neighbour move in sometime in the last year, take a closer look at them; they may not be who you think they are.

‘We’re fucked,’ Aidan muttered. ‘Shit, shit, shit!’

‘Panicking isn’t going to help.’

‘What else are we supposed to do? This is our life down the toilet.’ Aidan got to his feet and walked over to the window, looking out over the harbour. It was a view that seemed like it was from a prison cell when they’d moved in, but it had become a treasured sight. ‘I should have known it was all going too well. Damn and blast, Suzie. Why the hell has she done this?’

Roisin shrugged. ‘To advance her career? It’s a good story.’

‘Yeah, but it’s not her story, is it?’ Aidan pointed to the reporter’s name on the by-line. ‘If she’d written it, sure, I’d think that but instead, she gave it to this guy, Sean Reilly.’ He took another sip of his whiskey. ‘Fuck, she knows I’m innocent, too. But she didn’t whisper a word of that, did she? All she did was to drop me - sorry us - in the shit. Why? I just don’t get it.’

Roisin stared at the newspaper. ‘Maybe it’s a message.’

‘A message? What do you mean?’

Roisin didn’t answer for a few moments. She closed her eyes, then sighed.

‘Maybe she’s telling us we’re in trouble, that we - you - need to get in touch with her.’ Aidan stared at the clipping, wishing it wasn’t real. Eventually, he sighed.

‘I bet it’s Smith,’ he said. ‘I should have killed him when I had the chance.’

Roisin shook her head. ‘You’re not a killer, love. And we’re in this together, remember?’ She reached over and squeezed his hand. ‘Let’s not overreact. Nothing’s happened yet. Remember this came out on Sunday; no-one’s come beating a path to our door yet.’

Aidan couldn’t help but look at their front door.

‘Yet,’ he replied. ‘But they will.’

‘Can you contact her, find out what this is about, without guessing? Do you still have her number?’

Aidan nodded. ‘In my contact book; it’s upstairs.’

He went and retrieved the pay-as-you-go mobile he’d had since last year, praying that it still had some charge on it since he couldn’t remember the last time he’d plugged it in. To his surprise, and relief, it had a couple of bars. Enough to make a call.

He dialled Suzie’s number. It rang once then cut off. He tried again but this time, he didn’t even get a ring tone; it just didn’t connect.

‘No luck?’ asked Roisin.

‘No. I can try her office… oh.’

There was a bleep signifying the receipt of a text. It was from a number he didn’t recognise. ‘Don’t call,’ read