Death Angels (14 page)

“Good-looking coat.”

“Hmm.”

“I like your ponytail too, but isn’t it rather passé these days?”

“It’s mostly to blend in here.”

“Everybody’s welcome in south London. We don’t discriminate.” Frankie filed away at the offending nail.

The computer beeped.

“An e-mail from the other world?” Macdonald asked.

“Didn’t you know that there are more computers per capita in Jamaica than anywhere else in the Caribbean?” He read the message, which appeared to be quite short.

“Wrong,” Macdonald said.

“What?”

“Brixton may officially be a suburb of London, but it has more computers per capita.”

“Very funny, but this e-mail actually comes from your bailiwick.” He quickly reread the message and closed the program.

“Since when did it stop being yours?”

Frankie’s smile flashed in the semidarkness of the room. He picked up the file and moved on to another finger.

“Brixton,” Macdonald repeated.

“Right, the e-mail is a confirmation that my subsidiary has just received a new shipment of top-quality magazines and videos.”

“A new shipment?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Where from?”

“Is this an interrogation, Steve?” A jewel glittered in one of Frankie’s front teeth.

Macdonald tried to remember what those gems were called, but couldn’t. “You know me better than that, Frankie.”

“I’m not sure twenty-five years is long enough, Paleface.”

“Come on, now.”

“We’re from two separate worlds.”

“Okay, you win. But that shipment you mentioned is what interests me at the moment. You’ve read about the murder in Clapham, haven’t you? The kid who was cut up?”

“I saw something about it on television. But that was quite a while ago. Norwegian or Swiss, wasn’t he?”

“Swedish.”

“Oh.”

“
Crimewatch
is going to do a reenactment of it any day now.”

“It must be a big deal, then.”

“It’s a little different, that’s for sure.”

“Different? You can say that again. A white guy gets knocked off for once.”

Macdonald sipped his tea.

“When’s the last time
Crimewatch
did a show on a black victim?” Frankie continued.

“You know how it is.”

“I know exactly how it is. When black people get murdered, nobody gives a shit.” He put down his nail file. “How many murders did you say you had in southeast London a couple of years ago?”

“Forty-two or forty-three, I think.”

“And how many of the victims were black?”

“Something like . . .”

“Hell, Steve, stop pretending like you’re even trying to remember. I know that at least thirty-five of them were black. You don’t have to be a mathematician to figure that out. And I also know that those murders have as much of a chance of appearing on
Crimewatch
as I do of being admitted to a gentlemen’s club on the Mall.”

“We’re doing everything we can.”

“To get me into a club?”

“To attract the attention of the press.”

“I’m not blaming you for it. You can’t help it if you’re white.” Frankie went at it with the file again.

“I’m looking for any clues I can get,” Macdonald said.

“And so you come knocking on the gates of my kingdom.”

“Right.”

“What the hell for? What does this goddam murder have to do with my business?” Frankie put the file back down.

“Nothing in particular, but certain things happened while the crime was being committed that we’re anxious to find out more about. Have you heard about the two kids from London who were murdered in Sweden recently? In Gothenburg?”

“No, that’s news to me.”

“One of them is from Tulse Hill, where your aunt lives.”

“White boys.”

“Yes.”

“My heart bleeds for them.”

“Not as much as theirs.”

“Sorry, Steve.”

“All three murders have certain things in common, and it’s possible that one or more videotapes are lying around somewhere with a blow-by-blow account of exactly what happened. This is something that only the police have any inkling of, and you know what that means.”

“I won’t say a word.”

“You understand why I’m telling you all this?”

“Murders on film. What makes you think something like that?”

“I can’t give you the details, but certain indications point in that direction.”

“You really think that’s a possibility?”

“Yes.”

“Not in my worst nightmares . . . It’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard.”

Macdonald nodded.

“You’ve got your work cut out for you, Steve.”

Macdonald raised his cup to his lips, but the tea was cold.

“This isn’t your typical murderer on crack who waits patiently for the police to arrive,” Frankie said. He stood up, rubbing his forehead with his fist. “And you think I can help you find your snuff movie?”

“I’m just trying to get a little information. Like how much of this crap is actually around.”

“I stay away from that sort of thing.” Frankie glanced at the poster. “I swear by the spirit of my Caribbean ancestors.”

“If I had any reason to think otherwise, we would have taken our tea down at the Eltham police station.”

“I assume you want me to make some discreet inquiries.”

“As discreet as possible.”

“That goes without saying.”

“Do you know anyone who has an inner room that’s closed to the general public?”

“Sure.”

Macdonald got up.

“But not where they show snuff movies. Not as far as I know, anyway. It’s revolting enough, shit that makes the stuff I show here look like family day at the beach, but not the kind of thing you’ve had the bad taste to talk about.”

“See what you can find out,” Macdonald said.

“You can always ask your usual gossipmongers, can’t you? Like that pimp on Old Compton Street.”

“I’ll take care of that part, don’t worry.”

“Fine.”

“Call me in a couple of days, no matter what turns up. And watch your step.”

“Snuff movies . . .” Frankie shook his head.

“Give me a break. This can’t be the first time you’ve heard about a murder being filmed.”

“No, but you’ll never see any of this in the stores, Steve. These movies are marketed through special distribution channels that run high above our smutty little lives.”

“Shit flows downward. Or maybe in both directions and meets in the middle. Someplace in this paradise we call Soho is somebody who knows.”

“I envy your optimism.”

“Thanks for the tea hour, Frankie.”

“I’ll call you on Friday.”

Macdonald gave a half wave and walked out. Turning right outside the theater, he crossed Wardour Street and continued east on Old Compton. The rain had stopped. People sat at outdoor cafés and pretended it was spring. I envy their optimism, he thought.

When he got to Greek Street, he went into the Coach and Horses pub, ordered a Theakston Old Peculier and wriggled out of his coat. It was the usual crowd of literary wannabes, has-beens and lethal combinations of the two. A couple of authors who had come close to making it big spent most of their time here drowning their sorrows in drink. The place was always half empty at this time of day.

An intoxicated woman three stools away was carrying on a conversation with two men at a nearby table. “You have no fucking idea what it means to be a gentleman,” she shouted, then raised her glass to her lips.

STURE BIRGERSSON’S OFFlCE WAS IMMACULATE. NOT A COFFEE
stain or piece of paper on his desk. Winter harbored a certain admiration for the way the division chief arranged his world: concentration on one thing at a time, no reminders of everything that was still unsolved, no remnants of incomplete thoughts, no reports resembling books whose authors had died in the middle of writing them.

They called Birgersson the Boss in the corridors of police headquarters, but that had more to do with his position than his personality. Birgersson sat eternally in his office and waited. He read but drew no conclusions. God knows what happens to all the reports after he’s done with them, Winter thought as he crossed and uncrossed his legs in front of the desk.

Birgersson was a Laplander who had wound up in Gothenburg by chance, not design. Unlike everyone else from northern Sweden, he didn’t go back and hunt in the fall. He always took two weeks off, but Winter was the only one who knew where he went, and he wouldn’t have told anyone else if his life depended on it. In all the years Winter had been acting division chief during those times, he had never needed to call Birgersson. He couldn’t conceive of a situation he wouldn’t be able to handle on his own.

“I have to admit you’ve got a healthy imagination.” Birgersson had the peculiar accent of someone who’d grown up in a mining district near the polar circle and spent his adult life in the hustle-bustle of a European metropolis.

Winter brushed a speck of dust off his tie, leaned forward and tugged on the seat of his pants, which had gathered too tightly on one side when he’d sat down.

“Not so much in the way of results, but you compensate for that with creativity,” Birgersson continued, lighting a cigarette.

“We’re making progress.”

“Shoot.”

“You’ve read the reports.”

“It wears me out to go back and forth between all the different styles.” He pointed to the empty desk as if it were overflowing with stacks of paper. “William Faulkner one minute, Mickey Spillane the next.”

“Which do you prefer?” Winter asked, lighting a cigarillo.

“Faulkner, of course. He was a small-town boy too.”

“But you don’t feel like you’re seeing any results.”

“No.”

“I don’t look at it that way. We’re reading the witness statements, we’re going through the files on our favorite jailbirds, not to mention some of the more obscure ones. I’m not the only one who’s online from morning to night. And we’ve got all our sources working for us, and I mean all.”

“Hmm, have you talked to Skogome?”

“Not yet.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s too early, Sture. I don’t want a profile by a forensic psychologist until we’ve got more to go on.”

“That’s exactly what I was talking about.”

“What?”

“Not enough results.”

“What you’re talking about,” Winter said, “is longer reports and more bullshit to feed the press and evidence so strong that it will reach out and grab the police bigwigs.”

“Speaking of the press, I hope you’re ready for them.”

“Absolutely.”

“A fresh planeload of British reporters has just landed,” Birgersson said, “and they’re not taking any prisoners this time.”

“Not taking any prisoners? You’ve been watching too many Holly-wood action movies.”

“This afternoon I want you by my side, partner.”

“So you’re going to be there too?”

“Orders from the top.”

“I see.”

Birgersson put out his cigarette.

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” Winter said.

“Remember that your trip is unofficial.”

“Of course.”

“Police force to police force.”

Winter took a puff of his cigarillo and scanned the room for evidence that it had ever seen a piece of paper. Nothing.

“I have no idea what to expect from London,” Birgersson said. “But their DSI seems to be on top of things. Their detective superintendent.”

“I know what it means.”

“He has nothing but praise for your contact, that chief inspector.”

Birgersson looks like a dwarf birch, Winter thought. One that’s made a heroic effort to straighten up and climb down from the mountain. Funny I never noticed it before. “Macdonald,” he said.

“On his way up just like you.”

“Right, on an eleven o’clock flight tomorrow morning.” Winter put his half-smoked cigarillo in an ashtray that Birgersson had taken out of a desk drawer.

“Who knows, maybe you’ll have the whole thing solved by the time you get back. Meanwhile, we’ll do our best to hold down the fort.”

“Now that’s reassuring.” Winter smiled.

“I suggest you go to your office and get yourself into the right frame of mind for the press conference.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to take an extra beta-blocker?”

Birgersson broke into a hoarse laugh that could have been lifted from one of the action videos he guffawed his way through one night a week.

The press conference started off badly, staged a recovery in the middle and ended in chaos. Birgersson was exasperated before fifteen minutes had passed. Winter answered the questions that swarmed at them both.

The Swedish tabloid reporters were more restrained, taking the opportunity to pick up a few tricks of the trade from their aggressive British colleagues.