Death Trap (35 page)

He shook his head. ‘The old man pays our wages, not . . .’

Rio didn’t even see it happen; the next thing she knew the passenger’s door on Samson’s side of the car was flapping open and the youth was rolling in the dirt of the road. The car continued to accelerate forwards as Rio scrambled up on her seat, her gaze fixed on Samson who was growing smaller in the distance as he ran.

‘Stop the car,’ Rio demanded. But neither man listened to her as the vehicle continued to speed forwards.

She reached for the door, but the man behind her shot his arm forwards and grabbed her hand.

‘We have to get back before he dies. There is much that needs to be done if God decides that this is his last day.’

Rio desperately looked back at where Samson was. She could still make him out. And then the cocky boy did something that made her loathe him for as long as she lived – he blew her a kiss. Then he was gone, disappearing into the secluded world of the trees and tiny side streets.

forty-eight

3:05 p.m. London Time

Rio’s plane touched down at just after three in the afternoon London time. Zidane’s men had dropped her off near the airport at Nicosia and headed back to the hills. Rio didn’t usually do pity, but she hadn’t been able to stop herself feeling like an orphan dumped in the baking sun with no mama or papa to protect her, not even a sun hat. There had been no point hiring another car to go in search of him; Samson was long gone. Rio had then flirted with the idea of hanging around town for one more day to see if he appeared, but knowing Samson he’d brazenly cross the border himself, mouth full of lies and then . . . puff, he’d have been eaten up into the stream of tourists.

Still, she hadn’t come back empty-handed; the sixth raid was a copycat. And the one lead she had was a very dead Cornelius Bell.

Rio cruised through Stansted’s immigration and then passed by the area, divided by glass, where passengers were gathering at the gate waiting to take them to Northern Cyprus. Probably going on the same plane that she’d disembarked from. Once she’d left the green channel she bypassed the crowd on the other side waiting for loved ones and pulled out her mobile to call Calum. She stopped near a crowded coffee house where a mounted TV was on the BBC 24 News Channel.

‘I’m back,’ she told Calum. ‘Everything OK?’

‘If it weren’t I would have called you. Did you find baby Larkin?’

She turned in the direction of the television. ‘Yep. Claims the raid on the Bells’ wasn’t his uncle’s people. And that they wouldn’t have the cash needed to secure a contract killer.’

‘You believe him?’

‘It fits with—’

Rio’s words halted as a face came up on the TV screen.

Her tone changed to one of urgency. ‘Is Nikki in the room with you?’

‘No, she’s—’

‘Turn on the telly. BBC Twenty-four News Channel.’

She heard him moving because he put his mobile on speaker-phone. Her eyes never left the TV screen as she waited.

‘Bollocks,’ Calum said.

‘Keep this news away from her. We don’t need her tipping over the edge. I need to take care of a couple of things, then I’ll be with you.’

Rio terminated the call as Adeyemi Ibraheem’s face disappeared from the screen. But she read the breaking newsfeed at the bottom of the screen.

Body of student Adeyemi Ibraheem found in the River Thames.

Passengers in rows 20 to 40 for the 4.00 p.m. flight to Northern Cyprus from Stansted airport started lining up for a final security check before they boarded the plane. First in line was a man wearing a waist-length leather jacket and shades. He curled his lip slightly when a soft request was made for him to take off his sunglasses. But he took them off and handed over his passport. The airline employee opened it and looked at the name.

The employee looked at him, back at the photo, then handed the passport back to him.

‘Have a good trip.’

Terry Larkin smiled as he took back his passport.

4:10 p.m.

Rio walked into the coroner’s office. Harsh memories of accompanying families to identify bodies of loved ones swept over her, and she thought of the bodies of those who were never claimed by anyone. Over the years she’d learned how to push her emotions down deep and get on with the job of consoling, lending a temporary shoulder to lean on, but ultimately reserving all her energy for solving the case.

She would never forget her first one. A nine-year-old boy found lying at the foot of a snake-shaped slide in a community playground. The only evidence of violence had been a bruise to his right temple. Her superior had told her the way to deal with it was to imagine the person was in a deep sleep; she hadn’t been able to do that with the boy. All she’d seen when she’d gazed at his still body, his mum sobbing beside her, was the life that had been ready for him to live – maybe university, maybe a career that helped other people, maybe the father of another little boy. That was the last time she let any feelings sit on her shoulder when entering a coroner’s.

Until now . . . The night of the raid, Adeyemi’s mum had turned up at The Fort desperate to speak to her about his disappearance and what had she done? Ignored her because she was preoccupied with the raid. And now a young man was dead. Rio hadn’t even known Adeyemi, but she’d never forget the genuine protective emotions that glazed his dark eyes when he stared at Nikki Bell.

She shook the memories away as she headed for the partially opened office at the start of the corridor. A young woman, hair tied back into a practical ponytail, was working at the desk. Her head came up as she heard Rio push the door further back.

‘I’m looking for the Ibraheem family . . .’

The awful sound of wrenching from the corridor stopped the rest of her words. Rio pulled away from the door and eased slowly around to find Adeyemi’s mother bent and sobbing, being supported in the arms of a man she suspected was her oldest son. They halted when they saw her, the hostile stare the man sent Rio’s way didn’t stop her from approaching them.

‘You’re that pig that came to Mum’s house.’ It wasn’t a question but a statement. A statement filled with bile and over-flowing rage.

‘I’m sorry—’

Mrs Ibraheem’s head swung up, her bloodshot eyes bursting with such grief she looked like she was facing death herself. ‘I came to see you . . . to plead for your help. This is all because of that girl, isn’t it? I told him to stay away from her, to keep his head and mind in his books.’ Her head moved from side to side. ‘But he wouldn’t listen. Wouldn’t . . .’ Tears clogged her throat stopping her from continuing.

‘We don’t know if this has anything to do with the case surrounding Nikki—’

Chiwetel Ibraheem, well-known South London villain, punched over her. ‘I see that girl again, she’s dead—’

‘Don’t be putting threats around that you may come to regret.’

‘Or what?’ His question was belligerent and defiant. ‘You going to make sure my mum comes back here to view the body of her other son as well?’ He ended by sucking his teeth long and hard.

They walked past Rio, never looking back. Rio stood there for a good few minutes afterwards, the other woman’s grief still ringing in her head, thinking how a week ago a sixteen-year-old girl had been just like any other teen and now she had the corpses of the people she loved most in the world stacked up behind her.

Rio’s phone pinged. Text. She pulled it out and read:

It’s a long long way to Tipperary.

The strange message finished with a picture of a skull and crossbones.
?

Rio couldn’t make head nor tail of the message and decided that whoever had sent it must’ve have got their phone lines mixed up.

forty-nine

4:31 p.m.

‘I want to see Stephen Foster. And I want to see him now.’

The look on the face of Foster’s receptionist suggested to Rio that the idea that anyone could just blow into his suite of offices and demand to see her boss was a kind of crime in itself.

‘I’m sorry but I don’t think that’s going to be possible – can I suggest you try and make an appointment?’

Rio loved the ‘try’. She leaned over the desk. ‘Just buzz your boss, babe – tell him it’s Rio Wray and I want to talk about Greenbelt . . .’

The woman pursued her lips, then relaxed. ‘One moment, please.’ Then picked up her phone and spoke in a hushed voice to Foster.

Almost before she had replaced the receiver, Rio heard the great man himself coming down the stairs, so she left the receptionist’s office to meet him. He stopped halfway down the staircase, his full head of sweeping black-grey hair looking like it had been freshly groomed. Rio was used to his two standard expressions – the blank one that told you nothing and his look of contempt, which told you everything. But this one was new: open curiosity.

‘Detective . . .’ He paused. ‘I mean Ms Wray. What a surprise, I hear that you are no longer part of an investigation, which I believe is no longer on-going.’

‘We need to talk.’

He gestured with his hand for her to follow him upstairs. When they were seated in his spacious office, Foster ordered coffee before sitting in silence for a few moments. It seemed to Rio as if he was trying to work out on his own accord what the reason for her visit might be. But evidently he failed.

‘So, Ms Wray – to what do I owe the honour of this visit?’

‘I’ve got information that the Greenbelt Gang weren’t responsible for the murder of the Bells and their cleaner. I need you to answer a few questions for me.’

‘I see.’

Foster wore his blank expression now: a poker player with what might have been a very good or very bad hand. He sighed and leaned back. ‘And what on earth makes you think the Bells weren’t murdered by Gary Larkin and his group of amateur gunslingers?’

‘A member of Larkin’s gang—’

The lawyers shuffled in his chair. ‘I thought all of the gang were dead?’

Rio had already made her mind up not to mention Samson Larkin’s name. ‘My source told me they did raids one to five, but didn’t do number six. Also that fits in with the pattern of the gunmen at the Bells not wearing clown masks as the Greenbelt Gang did or expertly paint spraying all the security cameras. Plus no one spoke on the sixth raid unlike the other five raids.’

Foster seemed curious. ‘And this member of the gang you’ve discovered – is he reliable?’

‘I think he is. On this, yes.’

Foster frowned. ‘It could make sense I suppose. A piggy back raid on the Greenbelt murders to get rid of Maurice Bell?’

Rio leaned forwards. ‘Why would anyone want to get rid of Maurice Bell?’

Contempt crawled across the face of the man opposite her. ‘Are you telling me you didn’t look into Maurice Bell’s affairs and background as a matter of course, as part of the investigation?’

Rio didn’t like the finger pointing he was doing. ‘If you’ve got something to say, Mr Foster, say it.’

He hesitated, straightening the cuff of his expensive looking powder-blue shirt over his wrist. ‘I’m not saying Maurice Bell had enemies per se.’ He reached into his drawer and produced a Cuban cigar, which he clipped and lit with an art deco cigarette lighter. ‘But all successful men have enemies, Ms Wray. It’s one of the key indicators of a well-lived life. Look at me for example – I’ve got plenty. It’s only failures that everyone likes. Mr Bell was no different from any other man who’s made something of himself.’

Rio pulled out her notebook and pen. ‘Did you hear of any specific enemies he had? His daughter said she thinks he had a business partner when he started out?’

Foster blew cigar smoke upwards. ‘Look, Ms Wray, I’m willing to help you here but not at the expense of my reputation. I’m afraid I can’t divulge confidences that I’ve heard from my clients. I wouldn’t have any if I did that.’

‘Not even when they’ve been murdered?’

‘Especially when they’ve been murdered.’

Rio knew better than to press the matter. But at least she had another potential piece of her puzzle – Maurice Bell might have been a target for some reason and that was worth investigating.

She moved on. ‘You were one of the last people to see Gary Larkin before he went on the run to the place where he was killed. Did he give you any indication where he was going and why?’

Foster started laughing but it was a laugh without humour or warmth. ‘Of course not; I advised him to go home and sit it out – he told me that’s what he was going to do, but he either panicked or decided it was safe for him to do another job and relocated. Going on the run was the worst thing he could have done. In fact, in light of how it turned out, the very worst thing . . .’

‘OK. The house in Kent, where the gang were holed up, was owned by a front company in the Caribbean. Did you know how Gary would have been able to arrange the hire of a place like that?’

Foster puffed more vigorously on his smoke. ‘I’ve got no idea. Perhaps he knew some major league people who arranged it for him. I don’t know. Perhaps he broke in and squatted.’

Rio remembered the chaos of the raid. It was indeed possible that Larkin and friends had broken in. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any way you could find out who actually owns it? I’m not doing this for me, but to make Nikki’s life safe as soon as possible.’