Free Be Careful What You Wish For by Sibel Hodge Page A

Dawson.’
    Romeo whistled.
    ‘Apparently, years ago when Levi was just starting out, he signed a contract with Vinnie which wasn’t exactly favourable to him. Levi’s trainer, Terry, told me he’d recently overheard them rowing about the contracts. Now, Levi and his wife aren’t exactly living in luxury. They have a house worth around a million with nothing flashy or expensive in it. Levi should’ve got about twenty million from last night’s fight alone, so I’m pretty sure that this contract is dodgy.’
    ‘I’m not surprised if Vinnie is involved in it.’
    ‘During this row, Levi’s trainer thought Vinnie was ordering Levi to deliberately throw the fight. Vinnie’s cousin, Lee, has now got a betting shop called Bet-It, and the interesting thing about the fight is there were some unusual betting patterns. Hacker’s still looking into the details, but huge bets were placed on Levi going down in the eighth round.
    Romeo frowned. ‘Hang on a minute…I thought you said Levi got knocked out in the sixth round.’
    I sat back and crossed my arms. ‘Exactly! So my thoughts are that Carl Thomas turning up at the fight like that wasn’t planned or staged to cause the distraction that made Levi drop his guard. Something else was going on, but I don’t know what yet.’
    ‘That makes sense. What else?’
    ‘Apparently, Levi has been acting out of character lately, saying he needs to make things right and live up to his responsibilities,’ I said.
    Romeo thought about that for a moment. ‘Well, if he’s willing to throw his fights, then that could explain those comments.’
    I swallowed my now cool coffee and poked my finger in, dabbing up the milky foam stuck to the sides. ‘It could. His wife thinks he’s having an affair, so he could’ve been talking about that, too.’ I sucked my finger. ‘Also, I put Lee away for armed robbery years ago, and Carl Thomas’s bank was robbed last week.’ I raised an eyebrow for emphasis.
    ‘Interesting.’ Romeo looked off into the distance. ‘Yes, I remember now. The First National Bank robbery. But that was about ten years ago, wasn’t it? Do you think Lee’s still up to his old tricks?’
    ‘Anything’s possible when you’re dealing with lowlife scumbags.’ I shrugged.
    ‘I’ll see if Lee has an alibi for the time of the robbery. I’ve already checked any offenders we have in the system who’ve used a similar MO as the safety box robbery before, but so far I’ve come up with zilch.’ He drummed his fingers on the table. ‘Why do you think Carl turned up at Levi’s fight, and what was he shouting?’
    ‘I don’t know yet. I’m still working on that. But I’ve got the name of one of the people who put on large bets. Guess who it is?’
    Romeo shrugged. ‘Carl Thomas?’
    I grinned. ‘Close. It was Edward Kinghorn – joint owner of Kinghorn Thomas Bank with Carl Thomas.’
    Romeo stared out the window, letting this sink in. ‘So you think that Vinnie has been feeding Carl or Edward insider tip-off information about sporting events so they can place big bets on it?’ He turned back to me.
    I nodded. ‘That’s how it looks. The question is, are they using their own money or are they using the bank’s money without their clients knowing?’
    ‘Good point.’
    ‘Now we know there’s obviously some sort of connection between Carl, Edward, and Vinnie with these bets, but when Carl turned up at the fight he was shouting directly at Levi. Levi knew what he was saying, although he lied to me and told me he didn’t. Vinnie, who was sitting close to Carl at the time, heard what he was saying and he looked pretty worried, too.’ I nibbled another chocolate chip.
    ‘So what was Carl shouting at Levi?’
    ‘Hacker managed to work out the first part, but he’s still working on the rest of it. Carl said, “I know what you…”.’
    Romeo pursed his lips. ‘“I know what you…”?’
    ‘That’s all we’ve got to work with so far.’
    ‘Not a